The Making of the Ohio Valley States 9781582184234

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THE MAKING OF THE OHIO VALLEY STATES 1660–1837

THE MAKING OF

THE OHIO VALLEY STATES 1660-1837

BY

SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE

“Histories make men wise.”—BACON

WITH

MANY

ILLUSTRATIONS

AND

MAPS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS l894

C O P Y R I G H T , 1894, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

PRINTING

TROW DIRECTORY AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK

THE MAKING OF THE OHIO VALLEY STATES By Samuel Adams Drake As Published in 1894

Trade Paperback ISBN: 1-58218-422-4 Hardcover ISBN: 1-58218-423-2 eBook ISBN: 1-58218-421-6

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STONE ARROW -HEADS.

CONTENTS First Epoch—The Conquest of the West.

PAGE

PAGE

THE E NTERING W E D G E T H E IR O Q U O I S B L O C K A D E T H E G ATES OF THE W E S T I N T E R - OC E A N R O U T E S A VI S I T T O T H E M I A M I A N D P O T T A WATOMIE VILLAGES A PR A I R I E P O R T A G E TH E FRENCH ON THE M ISSISSIPPI AND W ABASH V I R G I N I A M O V E S T O T H E O H I O, 1 7 4 9 T H E B UILDING OF FO R T D U Q U E S N E “ JO I N O R D I E” TH E TRAGEDY OF FO R T D UQUESNE TH E H IGHLANDER’S ST O R Y T H E E N D O F F R E N C H D O M I N I O N‚ 1759 P ONTIAC ’ S W AR , 1763

3 16 19 23 27 29 3 3 4 5 5 7

1 9 8 4 8 2

74 80

Second Epoch—The Advance into the West. T H E H UNTERS OF K E N T U C K Y W H E E L I N G , 1770 T H E B ATTLE OF P O I N T P L E A S A N T L O G A N ’S SP E E C H A KE N T U C K Y S T A T I O N T H E R ESCUE OF THE C HILDREN TH R E E G R E A T L A N D SC H E M E S A BR A V E D E E D O F A R M S B O O N E’S C APTURE AND E S C A P E E LIZABETH ZANE’S H E R O I S M

93 105 106 109 110 112 113 116 122 125

T O THE P EACE OF 1 7 8 3 THE C OMMONWEALTH AN OLD KENTUCKY HO M E IN T E R L U D E T H E P ILGRIMS OF OHIO THE N ORTHWEST TERRITORY M ARIETTA , T H E C O R N E R - S T O N E C INCINNATI FO U N D E D , 1788 A CO M B A T O N T H E O H I O T H E ST R U G G L E F O R P O S S E S S I O N, 1790–1791 W A Y N E ’ S C A M P A I G N , 1794 T H E T REATY OF G REENVILLE , 1795

126 131 133 139 142 145 153 161 168 172 180 188

Third Epoch—Progress. F A L L O F T H E I R O Q U O I S, 1 7 7 9 T HE W E S T E R N R E S E R V E , 1795 O H I O B E C O M E S A S T A T E , 1803 I N D I A N A T E R R I T O R Y , l800–l812 A ST A M P E D E O F H O R S E S M I C H I G A N A N D T H E W AR OF 1 8 1 2 TE C U M S E H JO H N S O N ’S K E N T U C K I A N S TH E N ATIONAL R O A D T H E F I R S T ST E A M B O A T T H E E R I E C ANAL, 1 8 2 5 I NDIANA A S T A T E , 1 8 1 6 E MIGRANTS ON THE P RAIRIES I L L I N O I S A N D M I C H I G A N , 1810, 1837 A L S A T I A N E MIGRANTS TO O H I O APPENDIX

193 196 200 205 214 215 227 228 229 233 236 239 245 246 254 255

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

PAGE

M OUNDS NEAR M ARIETTA, O. Frontispiece P OTTERY FROM A NCIENT M OUNDS 3 Q UEBEC FROM AN O LD P RINT 5 HALBERDIER . 1650 6 W ISCONSIN INDIANS G A T H E R I N G W ILD R ICE 1 0 E X P L O R E R S ’ R OUTES TO THE M ISSISSIPPI , MAP 1 2 AN INDIAN COUNCIL , FROM LA HONTAN 1 6 A NCIENT S TONE AND C O P P E R R E LICS 1 7 M ICHILIMACKINAC IN 1688, F R O M L A H ONTAN 2 1 T HE S ITE OF C HICAGO 2 4 E ARTHEN M OUNDS, IN O UTLINE 2 8 F RENCH S ETTLEMENTS OF I LLINOIS , M AP 3 3 JO H N LA W 3 5 F RENCH M ILITARY L INE , LAKE E RIE TO THE O HIO, 1755, MAP 4 5 W ASHINGTON IN THE W ILDS OF P ENNSYLVANIA 4 9 P LAN OF F ORT D UQUESNE 5 1 “ JOIN OR D IE ” 5 4 BRADDOCK ’S ROUTE 5 9 G ENERAL D ANIEL M ORGAN 61 P LAN OF B RADDOCK ’S F IELD 6 4 B RADDOCK’S F IELD 6 5 B EAUJEU L EADS THE E NEMY ON 6 7 BRADDOCK D OWN 7 0 G ENERAL, THE M ARQUIS DE M ONT CALM 7 5 B OUQUET ’S R EDOUBT , PITTSBURG 7 7 G ENERAL JAMES W OLFE 7 8 S CALP D ANCE ( AFTER C ATLIN) 8 1 P ONTIAC ’S F IRE -CANOES 8 4 O LD B ARRACKS , FREDERICK , MD 8 7 CUMBERLAND G AP 9 6

D ANIEL B OONE P ICTURED R OCK A N O HIO R IVER F LAT -BOAT P OSITIONS OF K ENTUCKY S TATIONS, MAP P OSITIONS OF F RENCH AND E NGLISH FORTS , 1775, MAP T HE G ARRISON M ARCHING O UT T H E C OUNT DE V E R G E N N E S W HAT F RANCE WOULD HAVE G IVEN US, 1782, MAP I NDIAN P IPE -BOWLS W A S H I N G T O N ’S H E A D Q U A R T E R S , N EWBURG , N. Y. R UFUS PU T N A M S IGN OF THE B UNCH OF G R A P E S E LEPHANT M OUND A NCIENT E ARTHWORKS IN OHIO M INING T OOLS G E N. ARTHUR S T . CLAIR FORT WASHINGTON‚ CINCINNATI T HE I NDIANS ’ ROCK , PORTSMOUTH , O. H A R M A R ’ S D E F E A T, V ICINITY OF F ORT W AYNE , MAP P ITTSBURG IN 1790, MILITARY D E POT FOR THE O HIO U NITED S TATES P EACE C OMMISSION ERS , 1793 B RITISH O FFICERS AND I NDIAN O R ATOR, 1793 G ENERAL A NTHONY W AYNE M AP OF W AYNE ’S C AMPAIGN , AND E ARLY O HIO S ETTLEMENTS A MOHAWK V ILLAGE IN N EW Y ORK B URNING OF I ROQUOIS V ILLAGES O LD C OURT -H O U S E , CHILLICOTHE . O. W ILLIAM H ENRY H ARRISON

97 100 107 111 115 120 128 129 141 146 147 150 155 156 158 159 164 170 173 174 180 181 l83 186 194 195 201 207

x

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

M AP S H O W I N G T R E A T Y B O U N D ARIES

T ECUMSEH B ATTLE-FIELD OF T IPPECANOE D ETROIT IN 1815 M ICHILIMACKINAC B ATTLE OF C HICAGO D EFENCE OF F ORT S TEPHENSON (F REMONT, O.) C OMMODORE O. H. PE R R Y

208 209 212 216 219 220 223 224

PAGE

O LD S TAGE-WAGON AARON BU R R B R A D D O C K ’ S G R A V E , NA T I O N A L R OAD F ULTON’S S TEAMBOAT T HE W ALK-IN-THE-WATER E RIE C ANAL, LOCKPORT . N. Y. A MERICAN B OTTOM, V ICINITY OF S T. L OUIS T HE M OUTH OF THE O HIO

229 230 232 233 235 238 247 249

FIRST EPOCH

THE CONQUEST OF THE WEST “America has left behind it the cerements of the feudal system.”

POTTERY FROM ANCIENT MOUNDS.

THE ENTERING WEDGE Traders and Missionaries

OUR

present theme deals with the great central region comprised between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes. It may aptly be called the heart of the republic, because in these great waters lie the lifesprings of three-fourths of our country’s whole area. Nowhere, in the United States, is there a basin of such vast extent, capable of feeding so vast a population. Hence its destiny is to hold the balance of power between East and West; hence its situation is truly regal. As Canada was the parent stock, upon which this greater domain was early grafted, we must first trace its growth under French rule, though very briefly.¹ France held possession of all this immense tract, and much more besides, for a hundred years. History demands to know what she did with it in all that time. Did she hold it, as a great trust, for the benefit of mankind? Or was it merely treated as a great, royal preserve, in which the increase of the beaver, the marten, and the otter was more looked to than the increase of the

4

THE ENTERING WEDGE

human species? We shall presently see whether mankind was any better off from her hoarding it, as the miser hoards his gold; perhaps learn, too, just how much sentiment has been wasted upon a class of adventurers, with high-sounding names, who kept the country little better than the splendid desert they found it. His majesty, Louis XIV., talks to his supple governor in this wise about that wonderful man, La Salle, whose discoveries were to add so much glory to this reign: “Like you,” he curtly says, “I am persuaded that the discovery of the Sieur de La Salle is very useless; and it is necessary, hereafter, to prevent similar enterprises, which can have no other result than to debauch the people by the hope of gain, and to diminish the revenue from the beaver.” In these few tell-tale words we have the king’s whole philosophy of government. “I am the state,” he had said. He would not lift up the common people; he would much rather see the beaver increasing than the population; hence all other discoveries were to him very useless things indeed. The colony, as that part of Canada lying on the St. Lawrence was called, was of no very great extent. It mainly clustered around the island of Montreal, and the crag of Quebec—Montreal the storehouse, Quebec the fortress. At once fortress, capital, and port of commerce, Quebec held to Canada the same vital relation as Boston to New England. It was the cradle, the heart, the shield of Canada. Endowed by nature with a position almost impregnable, it attracted the sure and experienced eye of Champlain, its founder, as in the previous century it had that of the intrepid Jacques Cartier, its discoverer.

THE ENTERING WEDGE

5

Montreal was more of a trading-post, a good deal of a convent, and less of a stronghold. It was but weakly fortified against Indian attacks from above, as Quebec was expected to defend the colony against all others from below. Seated at the foot of the great Lachine rapids, all the Indian trade of the Far West was naturally poured into its lap. Between these two chief cities, a few strag-

QUEBEC, FROM AN OLD PRINT.

gling, ill-favored villages served as so many connecting links, rather than as feeders of either. Fears of their inveterate enemies, the Iroquois,² made the French long keep close to these places; indeed Montreal had sometimes been in a state of siege; nor did the slow growth in population, the causes for which we have just pointed out, admit of much expansion. In short, Canada was a typical royal colony, in which the king held both sword and purse. Emigration, as we of the nineteenth century understand the word, was not

6

THE

ENTERING WEDGE

encouraged. There was a small class of employers, furtraders mostly, and there was a larger class of employed, chiefly boatmen, bush-rangers, or handlers of other men’s goods. There were a few farmers, living near the chief towns or river villages, and there were a few fishermen on the coasts. The people, however, were of the most robust kind. Inured to outdoor life, their native gayety disposed them to be sociable toward the Indians, which the English, with colder temperament, could never be. When among Indians, the Canadian hunter easily put himself on their level. A HALBERDIER, 1650. When going to war he lived and fought like the Indians themselves. Like them, he learned to despise cold, hunger, hardship; to scrape away the snow for his bed; to fast or feast, as game was scarce or plenty; to bind up his own wounds with a few simples, or meet death without a whimper. This bred up a class of rude and lawless, but able-bodied, fighting

THE ENTERING WEDGE

7

men, used to the woods, skilful with their weapons, and hardly less ferocious in combat than the red men themselves. In time of war they could be turned out to a man, because they had no choice but to obey the call or be shot, whereas, in the English colonies, the people could not be forced into the ranks, against their own laws. Hence the whole fighting population could be mustered, at very short notice, by a simple proclamation; and woe to him who failed to be at the place appointed! Under Louis XIV. Canada could not well be anything but a military despotism, not greatly softened by an ecclesiastical despotism. Old France had been governed by priests; the same thing was attempted here. This the king’s officers warmly resented. So there was constant wrangling between them. Men would hardly risk crossing the ocean, knowing that they would be no better off by doing so—that the same stern despotism followed them everywhere. And even if they had come out to Canada, removals into the remote parts of it, to make new settlements, would have been strictly forbidden. This kept the colony small, if not select. In France Canada was valued first of all for its fur-trade, and afterward as an outlet for French goods; so that in one way or another nearly everybody there lived by the fur-trade; and the beaver-skin was the currency of Canada, just as tobacco was that of Virginia. This fur-trade being wholly in the king’s hands was, at best, nothing but a gigantic monopoly. Those wishing to engage in it had to pay roundly for the privilege, to say nothing of the gratuities demanded by those who had the granting of these permits. Traders bought the right to take so many boats, with so many men, to such or such a nation. Half the year the bone and sinew of

8

THE ENTERING WEDGE

the colony were roaming the distant prairies in quest of furs. True, it encouraged a life of adventure, but not a domestic life. It opened paths, but built no cities. It enriched the few at the expense of the many. It gave men a splendid physical training, but kept them ignorant dependants. What does the king himself say on this head? “Up to this time,” he says again, “I have seen little success in the enterprises of the Sieur de La Salle for the discovery of the western parts of Canada; and as it is alleged that he has given permits to several individuals to trade with the Indians, under pretext of this discovery, you should clearly explain to him my intention that he should grant no such permits.” In this curt style did this king—and he was every inch a king—remind his subjects that he alone was master. Though gilded, the rod he held over them was still a rod of iron. Canada, then, was a royal colony carried on for revenue only, with the head at Versailles and the hands at Quebec. Its rise or fall depended to a very great extent upon the yield of beaver. Of progress, in any enlightened sense, we discover very few traces indeed. Here, too, we have the native genius of two great peoples sharply defined. The Latin race conquered, but did not colonize. The Anglo-Saxon race conquered to colonize. In Canada the first object of men and rulers was the beaver-skin. Quarrels with the English, quarrels with the Iroquois, quarrels with each other, all hinge upon that one article of trade; as, conversely, alliances, truces, or treaties all look to the same end. To push this trade into new channels was, therefore, a prime object with every ambitious adventurer; for in

THE ENTERING WEDGE

9

every old corner some existing monopoly was already securely intrenched. These “runners after profitable adventures” were the explorers—good, bad, or indifferent. Of these there were two classes, who to-day share the honor of having first opened the way into the Far West. There were the men like La Salle, who were looking for gain, and there were the men like Marquette, who were looking for souls to be saved. Both worked with patient heroism and unflagging zeal, both endured equal hardships, and both have left imperishable records to posterity.³ These two were the types of many. One wrought for glory in this life, the other for that of the life to come. The explorer for trade carefully looked over the face of the country for the best routes; saw the people; got the best idea he could of their numbers, power, and resources; picked out sites for his trading-posts, as he went along; and roughly calculated, in his mind, from what he saw and heard, how many skins each tribe could probably be made to furnish in return for brandy, powder, lead, and a few cheap goods. The larger the tribe, the greater the profits. The missionary either was sent out among the savages by his superior, or went voluntarily, at the call of conscience. Never, since the days of the Apostles, were such tasks assumed by mortal men. Unwelcome intruders in the squalid wigwams of these fierce pagans, they were in turn starved, spit upon, and tortured, not only in the spirit, but the flesh also. Joyful, indeed, was that day on which the missionary could claim even one convert. All had gone forth to a voluntary exile; some to martyrdom itself. The missionary became an explorer, too, though he

10

THE ENTERING WEDGE

studied the country with a far different object from the trader. Each, however, diligently worked to extend geographical knowledge. The trader gave his employers an account from his stand-point; and the missionary wrote his relation, with sometimes a rude pen-sketch or two added, to his superior. It is to him we owe by far the

WISCONSIN INDIANS GATHERING WILD RICE.

best and fullest accounts of the infancy of the Great West, because, if not always the best observer, he was by far the better educated man of the two. The trader carried in his haversack some cheap trinkets, a roll of tobacco, and a bottle of brandy. The missionary carried his breviary. It is a sobering thought that the trader’s brandy probably did more harm than

THE ENTERING WEDGE

11

the missionary’s holy teachings did good. It is a humiliating one that a savage should ever say to the white man, as these poor creatures did to their destroyers: “You made us drunkards; you gave us brandy, and now we cannot live without it; we must have it.” Hence traders and missionaries were never on the best of terms. With good reason the traders feared the influence of the missionaries, who wanted to make a man of the savage, while the traders would make him a sot. It is true that a few venturesome traders had gone into this far-off region before the Jesuit fathers did, for as one of them says, “Where there is lucre, there is people enough to be had.” But the missionary was early in the field, ready to lay down his life in the battle with paganism. So died Marquette, greatest, perhaps, of missionaries, while La Salle, greatest of explorers, died by the bullet of an assassin. Through such untiring efforts, ranging between 1660 and 1670, two missions had been started on Lake Superior, one in the southwest corner, called St. Esprit, one at the Sault Ste. Marie; a third at the Straits of Michilimackinac; and a fourth at the Green Bay 4 o f L a k e Michigan—all places of great resort on account of their fisheries, and therefore most proper for missionary stations. Near the close of this period, or between the years 1668 and 1670, it is claimed that La Salle discovered the Ohio, and though perhaps not clearly proved, his claim was allowed in his own time, and is generally accepted in ours. 5 We know, at any rate, that the French saw this river first. We know, furthermore, that in all their subsequent quarrels over it with the English, they based their title upon this discovery of La Salle’s.

12

THE ENTERING WEDGE

In the spring of 1671 the French took formal possession of Sault Ste. Marie, the Lakes Huron and Superior, with all the country to the western sea; 6 so making this first act of sovereignty begin at the extreme northern limit of the United States. In June, 1673, Joliet and Marquette, explorer and missionary, per formed their famous exploit of reaching the Mississippi by way of Green Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin, seeing the Illinois, the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas, as EXPLORERS’ ROUTES TO THE MISSISSIPPI. they paddled down the majestic Father of Waters. At the returning, they reached Lake Michigan by way of the Illinois and Chicago rivers. In 1679 La Salle penetrated into the interior of Illinois, by way of the St. Joseph and Kan-

THE ENTERING WEDGE

13

kakee rivers, then and there striking the first blow to hold the country, by building a fort near the site of Peoria. His men soon deserted it, however. The next year he himself reached the Mississippi, and two years later its mouth; there taking formal possession of all the vast countries it watered under the name of Louisiana. 7 When La Salle came back from this expedition, which gained him so much honor, he chose another, and much stronger position on the Illinois, in room of that abandoned. This was at a place called The Rock, or later, Starved Rock, a castellated crag, rising steeply up from the riverside opposite to the village of Utica. 8 H e r e L a Salle designed planting a colony among the numerous and friendly Illinois, not only to draw in the trade of all the region round about, and protect the Illinois from Iroquois raids, but to be a kind of half-way house between the St. Lawrence and the Gulf. With his forts on Lake Michigan, and at Niagara, La Salle thought this long route might be kept open, though he must have realized that it could never be safely travelled except by strongly armed bodies of men. La Salle did, however, lay out the road for other men to travel in. Thus, even at so early a period, no less than three practicable routes had been found between the lakes and the Mississippi. All, of course, were previously known to the Indians, whose highways they had been, no one can say how long, and who now guided the newcomers over them as to old and long-travelled roads. What had been traversed by millions of men, from an immemorial time, as the wonderful earthen mounds of this region show to this day, it would be absurd to call a trackless wilderness, especially when it was everywhere threaded by the well-worn trails of so many passing

14

THE ENTERING WEDGE

generations. All the Frenchmen could with truth say was that they were the first white men to travel those paths, since grown to great highways of commerce. 9 If, now, we look at the map, we are surprised to find how remarkably travel between the lakes and the Mississippi is facilitated by the trend of the rivers themselves. It really seems like part of a great plan, as they uniformly take their rise near the lakes, and thence flow off southwesterly toward the great river. The water-shed, too, is but little raised above the general level of the country, so that if tedious, the portages were not difficult, like those of a mountainous region. So many journeys, in so many directions, had resulted in locating the great water-courses more or less correctly, in locating the various local tribes, and in acquiring some little knowledge of their strength, their enmities, or their friendships. As they threaded the broad prairies on foot, or floated on the still waters that wind through them in silvery folds, the Frenchmen saw with admiration great herds of shaggy bison, quietly grazing on all sides of them. They saw with rapture the sun sink down below a horizon seemingly as far off as if they had been on the great ocean itself. Yet all their thoughts were how to keep this boundless domain a solitude. With a few posts well placed, and a few gifts judiciously bestowed, they might control the fur-trade, and hold the Indians in fast friendship. This was the whole philosophy of frontier life, as long ago as when the first campfire was lighted on the prairies of the west. This was the colonial system of Louis XIV. As the pioneers of this region were Frenchmen, the presence of so many French names on the map is readily accounted for. In a certain way, they preserve its his-

THE ENTERING WEDGE

15

tory. In like manner, another group of names stands for the red men, who once called all this broad land theirs. We would not see one of them changed, strange as they sound to the present generation; stranger still as they must grow, as the years roll on. By reason of their discoveries the French claimed everything west of the Alleghanies, and for many years it was not Englishmen who disputed its possession with them, but a power they themselves had first heedlessly provoked on the shores of Lake Champlain, and often trembled at in the years to come—in a word, the redoubtable Iroquois. Wherever the French went, they heard this people spoken of with fear and trembling. ¹ THIS is more fully treated of in the Making of the Great West, of this series. ² FOR FEAR OF the Iroquois the French traders sometimes embarked at Montreal by night, so as not to be seen by their scouts. ³ LA S ALLE and Marquette have counties, towns, or cities named for them, the first in Illinois, on the scene of his exploits. the last in Michigan. 4 G REEN B AY was better known to the French as the Baie des Puants, or Stinking Bay. The Winnebagoes, who lived near it, were called Les Puans, both names originating in an alleged disagreeable odor to the waters of the bay. The mission of St. Francis Xavier was at the head of the bay, at the outlet of Fox River. A pivotal point in the history of Wisconsin, considered by good scholars as its first bona fide settlement, the mission of St. Esprit being the first mission. The English name, Green Bay, according to Carver (Travels, p. 15), comes from the earlier appearance of

verdure here, in the spring, than at Michilimackinac. The French post here was called Fort La Baie, corrupted into Le Bay by the English. It stood on the west bank of Fox River. 5 D ISCOVERY OF THE O HIO , by La Salle, rests chiefly on the authority of Joliet, who has it so on his map, 1674. The matter is discussed in Wisconsin Hist. Coll., ix., 108, Parkman’s La Salle, etc. 6 S E E Making of the Great West, p. 79. 7 L OUISIANA , the name given in honor of Louis XIV. 8 U TICA is on the Rock Island Railroad, ten miles below Ottawa, and five above La Salle. Parkman considers it the site of the great Illinois town of La Salle’s and Hennepin’s accounts. The Rock is six miles below Ottawa. Fort St. Louis, La Salle’s fort, was deserted before 1721. 9 BE S I D E S the great routes, there were cross-country paths connecting the principal villages.

16

THE IROQUOIS BLOCKADE

THE IROQUOIS BLOCKADE Niagara the Key of the Lakes

W H I L E the French were so industriously spreading their net to catch the trade of the Northwest, a most formidable foe rose in their path. This was not the English, whose most western settlement was Schenectady, but the powerful Iroquois, who claimed most of the western country themselves, by right of conquest. Their claim ran as far down the Ohio Valley as the Tennessee, or Cherokee River, as it was first called, from taking its rise in the country of that nation, and covered everything as far north as the great lakes. In all that vast region there were none to dispute their title, for even the most warlike tribes had been driven to acknowledge the all-conquering AN INDIAN COUNCIL (FROM LA HONTAN). Iroquois as their masters. To give an idea of the extent of their conquests, it will be enough to say that the Iroquois had driven the Ottawas out of their own country, to find a present refuge on the shores of Lake Superior, and that La Salle found the numerous and warlike Illinois as much afraid of the terrible Iroquois as if they had been so many hungry tigers. It was the same thing east or south. To see the French walk in, and coolly take possession of what had

THE IROQUOIS BLOCKADE

17

been won with their own blood, and by their own bravery, incensed the Iroquois beyond measure against them. Of course the French promised to protect the resident nations against the Iroquois, as if it was an easy thing for them to do, when the plain fact was that they could not protect themselves, or were kept in constant fear of their own lives. It had been early found that the short way to the Mississippi lay around the stupendous cataract that guarded

ANCIENT STONE AND COPPER RELICS.

the Iroquois country at the west. It was as good, or better, than a Chinese Wall, and probably helped on the idea we find so generally prevailing, that a people, whose gateway had been built by the Great Manitou himself, must be under his special protection. This was Niagara —Niagara, the key of the lakes. La Salle, long-headed, astute, persuasive, had wheedled the Senecas into letting him build a sort of fort there, in the winter of 1678–79, to aid him in his explorations. This, however, was soon after burned, and it had not 2

18

THE IROQUOIS BLOCKADE

been rebuilt. At this point, which La Salle had foreseen could be made impregnable to an enemy, the Iroquois had as good as established a blockade, which shut out free communication through the lakes. It therefore became an object of the first importance to the French to raise this blockade. The English took no active part in this rivalry, at first, except to protest that the Iroquois were the King of England’s subjects, and therefore under his protection. But when the French attacked the Iroquois in their own country, the English did absolutely nothing to help them, except prate loudly about what they would do by and by. It was an unequal contest—a cruel contest—to which men of common judgment saw but one end. The French were playing their Northwestern allies against the Iroquois; and the English were playing the Iroquois against the French. Whoever won, it was not to be the Indian. The importance to them of opening this route to the West led to an attack being made upon the Senecas, who held Niagara, by Governor Denonville, in the year 1687. Though making stout resistance, the Senecas were beaten from their villages, so leaving the French masters of this much-coveted corner of Lake Ontario. After this victory Denonville began the building of another fort, at the same spot previously occupied by La Salle’s, later so historic. This, too, was abandoned the next year, on account of the scurvy breaking out among the soldiers there, and on the demand of the English, was destroyed by its builders. Thus it returned to its legitimate owners until many years after.¹ And thus, twice in ten years, had the French seen this important pass slip through their fingers, after having, as they thought,

THE GATES OF THE WEST

19

got firm hold of it. They were thus forced out of the channels nature had laid down, for many years to come. ¹ The French rebuilt Fort Niagara in 1726, in pretended retaliation for the seizure of Oswego, by the English, on

the same spot where Denonville’s and La Salle’s forts had stood.—Doc. Hist. N. Y., i., 446.

THE GATES OF THE WEST Michilimackinac, Detroit, and Niagara

O F all the early missions in the Northwest, Michilimackinac was doubtless the most important. Sainte Marie of the Sault, and La Pointe, were, indeed, earlier in point of time, and excellently placed, too, for reaching all the vast region tributary to Lake Superior; yet neither was so well situated for carrying on trade or exploration south of the lakes. Hence Michilimackinac always plays a leading part in the early history of the Northwest. Marquette was in charge of the mission here (St. Ignace), when, with Joliet, he started off to find the Mississippi. La Salle also made it his rendezvous, on his various trips to and from that river. Yet when we look at its place on the map, and glance over the frightful distances to be travelled, we cannot help asking ourselves, what manner of men were these, who thought no more of traversing the great lakes in a frail bark canoe than we do to-day in a luxurious palace steamer? Ever quick to detect a resemblance, the Indians seem to have been struck with that of this bold island to a swimming tortoise; and that is just what the name means in their tongue. It soon came also to be applied to the adjacent shores, though belonging, first of all, to the island itself.

20

THE GATES OF THE WEST

Then again, Michilimackinac was the regular rendezvous for the multitudes who every year came there to spear the white fish, or to make their annual canoe voyages to Montreal with the winter’s catch of peltries. In a little time it was the traders who came to the Indians to buy and sell, thus turning Michilimackinac into a trading-post. This was neither more nor less than cutting off the Indian trade from the colony for the benefit of a few licensed traders, and it gave rise to endless bickerings. When, however, these traders began coming up the lakes, the Indians still came here to exchange their peltries for goods. There were always two opinions in Canada as to which was for the best interests of the colony, one party being as strongly in favor of the old way as the other was of the new. And sometimes one, sometimes the other got the king’s ear. So we see that all were not agreed upon the policy of extension by any manner of means. Indeed the two parties were bitterly hostile. Within a very few years, the importance of its trade caused the sending of soldiers there for its protection, and Michilimackinac then became a military trading-post, with a mission attached. Baron La Hontan says it was so chosen on account of its security from Iroquois raids, as even these tigers dared not venture across the rough waters of Lake Huron in their frail canoes. The same writer describes the place as he saw it in 1688 as follows: “It is,” he says, “not more than half a league from the outlet of Lake Michigan. Hurons and Ottawas have each a village here, separated by a single palisade, but the Ottawas are beginning a fort at some twelve hundred paces off. They take this precaution on account of the murder of a certain Huron by four young Ottawas. The

MICHILIMACKINAC IN 1688, FROM LA HONTAN.

[ EXPLANATION .—A, French village; B, Jesuit mission; C, Huron village; D, cornfields; E, Ottawa village.]

22

THE GATES OF THE WEST

Jesuits have a little house by the side of a sort of church, inclosed by palisades, which separates them from the Huron village. All their missions are subordinate to this one.” The roving traders, he adds, had only a very trifling establishment there, though he thought it must increase with the growing importance of the trade. This account will equally stand for most of the early French settlements. La Hontan’s rough sketch of Michilimackinac is here inserted, rude as it is, because it is the earliest known picture of the place, besides conveying a tolerably accurate idea of what it was like in its infancy. There was an auxiliary mission (St. Simon), founded at the same time at Great Manatoulin Island, where a band of Ottawas had made their residence, after being driven from their old homes. In some six years more (1694), Michilimackinac had six or seven thousand Indian residents at certain seasons, a fort with two hundred soldiers, and a village of about sixty houses, occupied by traders or bush-rangers, besides the mission. La Motte-Cadillac was now in command. It must be understood, however, that these houses were nothing more than rude log-cabins, chinked with mud. The French now felt themselves strong enough to take a bold step. This was nothing less than the seizure of the outlet of Lake Huron, so as to keep the English traders from passing up into the lakes that way. In 1686 Du Lhut had been sent there, with fifty men. He built a stockade at the west side of the Detroit Strait, whence he led a mongrel band of French and Indians, the scrapings of western posts, to help Denonville chastise the Senecas, or rather to secure a foothold at Niagara, the real object of the campaign.

INTER-OCEAN ROUTES

23

The Senecas were driven from their villages as we have seen. Denonville then sent La Hontan to relieve Du Lhut, at Detroit, but after wintering there, La Hontan set fire to his fort, upon hearing that Niagara had been abandoned. So this attempt proved a dismal failure. Detroit (The Strait), on the spot where it now stands, was one of the first fruits of the peace of 1697, known as the peace of Ryswick. Almost immediately (1701), La Motte-Cadillac was ordered down from Michilimackinac to begin another establishment, at the narrows of the beautiful deep-flowing river, uniting Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie. Cadillac landed there on July 24th, laid out the ground, and set his men to work building a fort against the winter. One early result was seen in the speedy desertion of Michilimackinac by the Indians, who mostly followed the French to this new abode. We have now very briefly reviewed about all that the French had done in the West, to the close of the seventeenth century. INTER-OCEAN ROUTES

B Y seizing Detroit the French got full control of the three great lakes from which the various inland routes branched off to the Mississippi. It is to these we must now turn. Mention has been made of the trading-post founded by La Salle on the Illinois, called The Rock, where the explorer had meant to gather a colony of his own. Unfortunately he did not live to realize his hopes. After his untimely end, The Rock became a bone of contention

24

INTER-OCEAN ROUTES

between rival factions of traders, fell into neglect, and was finally deserted between the years 1718 and 1721. La Salle’s searching eye had quickly seen that the Illinois was destined to be the greatest thoroughfare of all. It was what might be called the direct route from the lake posts, by the west shore of Lake Michigan, to the Mississippi. Where the little river Chicago emptied into the lake, La Salle had unconsciously set foot on the

THE SITE OF CHICAGO.

destined metropolis of the Great West. When he was wearily trudging across the miry portage, stretching between this river and the nearest branch of the Illinois, behind him loomed the locomotive.¹ La Salle had first tried another route. This coasted the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to its southeast corner, where the river St. Joseph enters it. At this point, called by him The Miamis, from its lying in the

INTER-OCEAN ROUTES

25

country of that nation,² La Salle had built a little fort, which went by this name also.³ He ascended this stream as far as the site of South Bend, Indiana, whence his Indian guide 4 led the way across the five-mile portage to the Kankakee, 5 where canoes were again launched, and the voyage to the Illinois resumed. These two trials fully established the Illinois as the main link between the lakes and the Mississippi. Between the two, the country could be pretty cleanly swept of its peltries. Some years later, the French built a fort at the St. Joseph portage, called by them Fort St. Joseph. 6 I t stood near the site of the city of Niles, Michigan. The Miamis and Pottawatomies lived here, in contiguous villages, opposite to the fort, which presently assumed more importance in connection with still another route, now to be described. This avoided the long circuit through Lakes Huron and Michigan. At the extreme southwest corner of Lake Erie it entered the Maumee,7 ascended that stream some ninety miles to its forks, whence a portage, varying from nine to thirty miles with the stage of water, led to a branch of the Wabash, and so on to the Ohio and Mississippi. At this point the French built Fort Miami, this also being the country of the Miamis, for whom three important rivers thus take their names. This was the direct route between Detroit and the Southwest. Where the furtive canoe first glided into the still waters of the Maumee, the city of Toledo now stands; and where Fort Miami stood, one sees the steeples of Fort Wayne. Last, but not least, the Green Bay route, by way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, struck the Mississippi too

26

INTER-OCEAN ROUTES

high up for La Salle’s purposes. It, however, became an important feeder, just as soon as the traders ventured to go among the Sioux, those fierce Arabs of the plains, who roamed the prairies bordering both banks of the great river. This they were certainly doing, from Lake Superior, as early as 1680, because Father Hennepin, who ascended above the Falls of St. Anthony, in this very year, was rescued by some of these roving traders. ¹ THE Chicago and Rock Island Railway follows this route, in part. ² MIAMI s, called in some accounts Twightees, claimed all the country between the Scioto and Wabash, from the Ohio to Detroit and Chicago, on the north. At the Treaty of Greenville, Little Turtle, a Miami chief, thus defined the boundaries: “It is well known by all my brothers present that my forefather kindled the first fire at Detroit: from thence he extended his lines to the headwaters of the Scioto; from thence to its mouth; from thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash; and from thence to Chicago, on Lake Michigan.”— Am. State Papers, 1, 570. ³ FORT M IAMI, of La Salle, at the shore of Lake Michigan, should not be confounded with Fort St. Joseph, higher up the same river. Charlevoix speaks rather contemptuously of it as a “commandant’s house, surrounded by a poor palisade,” adding that except Chambly and Catarocouy (Frontenac) “it is the same everywhere.”—iii., 312.

4 T HE I NDIAN guide not being at hand, La Salle got lost looking for the path, which establishes the fact that the trail was an old one. 5 K ANKAKEE is called in all the early accounts and maps Theakiki; I find the branch making the portage is laid down on one undated map, probably about 1750, as Iroquois River. 6 T HE S T . JOSEPH of Lake Michigan, which makes a southerly bend into Indiana, must not be confounded with the St. Joseph’s, a branch of the Maumee. 7 M AUMEE seems only another form of Miami. Confusion is inevitable unless it is borne in mind that this river runs its course partly in Indiana, while the Great and Little Miami have theirs wholly in Ohio. Sometimes called the Miami of the Lakes. The French Fort Miami, of this river (another source of confusion), is placed a little below where the St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s rivers unite to form the Maumee, and on the southern bank of this river.— Mitchell’s Map of 1755.

MIAMI AND POTTAWATOMIE VILLAGES

27

A VISIT TO THE MIAMI AND POTTAWATOMIE VILLAGES (Of the St. Joseph)

T H E villages mentioned in the previous chapter are thus described by Father Charlevoix, who visited them in August, 1721. “Imagine,” he says, “a mass of cabins without order or alignment, some like sheds, some like tunnels, built of bark, propped up by a few stones, sometimes covered in on the outside with mud, daubed on pretty thick; in a word, constructed with less art, skill, or solidity than those of the beavers. These cabins are fifteen to twenty feet broad, and sometimes a hundred long. In that case, they have several fires, or a fire to every thirty feet or so. “When the ground floor is not large enough to furnish lodgings for all, the young men sleep on a sort of stage, raised five or six feet from the floor, all along the length of the cabin. The movables and provisions are hung above on poles, placed crosswise under the roof. These cabins have neither chimneys nor windows; but they have a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape through, which must be closed up when it rains or snows, and the fire put out, unless they wish to be choked and blinded by smoke.” Like one, like all. This description will therefore stand for each and every village we may have occasion to mention. Dirt, squalor, and filth were common to all. The visitor goes on to say that “The savages of these parts are naturally great thieves, who look upon everything they can pick up as lawful prize. It is true that should one perceive, in good season, that one has

28

MIAMI AND POTTAWATOMIE VILLAGES

lost something, it will be enough to notify the chief of the tribe, when one is assured of finding it again. But it will be necessary to give this chief more than the value of the thing lost, and he will still ask you for some trifle to give the finder, who is probably no other than the thief himself. I myself was in this predicament from the day of my arrival, and they showed me no mercy.” From this little story, which, by the way, all travellers indorse, it would seem that the Indians did not consider

EARTHEN MOUNDS IN OUTLINE.

stealing a breach of hospitality. It was not the theft itself, but the being found out that grieved them. A little piece of formality, observed among the Miamis, will serve to initiate us into their manner of receiving strangers, upon whom it was desired to make an impression. The visitor says: “Some days after, I went to make a visit to the Miami chief, who had sent word that I was expected. He was a big, well-made man, badly disfigured by the loss of his nose, which they told me happened in some drunken

A PRAIRIE PORTAGE

29

carouse. When he heard that I was coming, he planted himself, cross-legged, on a sort of low platform, at the bottom of his hut, after the manner of the Grand Turk, and there I found him. He talked little, and appeared much to affect a proud gravity, which, however, he carried off indifferently.” The pious father also gives us an interesting account of some games he witnessed here, among the Miamis, all of which helps us to an insight of their way of life. Thus he begins: “This day the Pottawatomies were come to play the game of straws with the Miamis. The game was played in the chief’s cabin and on the open ground before it. The straws used are little twigs of the bigness of a wheat stalk, and no more than two inches long. They take a bunch of these, generally containing a hundred and one straws, but always an odd number. After giving them a good mixing up, with many contortions of their bodies and many invocations of their favorite genii, the whole are divided into packets of ten, with a sort of awl or pointed bone. Every one takes his packet at hazard, and the one who gets the eleven straws gains a certain number of points. Sixty or eighty play the game at a time.”

A PRAIRIE PORTAGE

A M O N K , who is making the long journey from Michilimackinac to New Orleans, is writing to a certain duchess, who is probably at that hour fast asleep in her chamber at Paris. Let us follow him: “I believe I let you know in my last that there was a choice of two routes open to me, in going to the Illinois.

30

A PRAIRIE PORTAGE

The first would be to go back to Lake Michigan, coast the southern shore, and then ascend the little Chicago River. After going up for five or six leagues, one passes into the Illinois by means of two portages, the longest being no more than a league and a quarter over. But as this river is yet only a brook at this place, they told me that at this time of year I would not find water enough there to float my canoe. So, I have taken the other route, which also has its inconveniences, and is not nearly as agreeable, but is more sure. “Yesterday I set out from the fort of the St. Joseph, and I ascended this river about six leagues. I then went ashore at the right, walked a league and a quarter, at first along the river bank, then across country in an immense prairie, all sowed over with little clumps of trees, which give it a very beautiful effect. This is called the Bull’s Head Prairie, because they found there once the skull of a bull of immense size. And why should there not be also giants among the animals? I camped at a very pretty spot called the Foxes Fort, because the Foxes, that is to say the Outagamis, had there, not long ago, a village fortified in their manner. “This morning I have again travelled a league of prairie, with my feet almost always in the water; then I came to a sort of bog, which communicated with several others of different sizes, the largest not being a hundred paces round. These are the springs of a river called Theakiki, which our Canadians have corrupted into Kiakiki (Kankakee). Theak means a wolf, I do not recollect in what language, but this river bears this name because the Mahingans, who are also called Wolves, took refuge here in days gone by. “We put our canoe, which two men carried up to this

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

31

time, in the second of the sources, and all got into it, but there was hardly water enough to float us. Ten men could make in two days a canal here, straight and navigable, which would save a great deal of trouble, and ten or twelve leagues of road, for the river, at its source, is so narrow, and it is necessary continually to make such short turns, that one risks staving his canoe every instant, as has just happened to us. “During the following days we paddled steadily on from morning till night, always favored by the current, which is quite strong, and sometimes, also, by the wind. In fact we went over a good deal of ground, though actually making very little progress, since at the end of ten or twelve leagues we would find ourselves so near our last camp that we might be seen and even heard from one to the other, at least with a speaking-trumpet.”

THE FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE WABASH, 1718

E ARLY in the eighteenth century, a group of settlements sprung up on the banks of the Mississippi, destined to build greater than they knew. It was most advantageously planted, where traders, going or coming between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, might call for supplies or rest from their fatigues; yet its remoteness made the attempt a bold one. As we have already seen, La Salle’s discoveries had led to his naming all the boundless regions drained by the Mississippi, Louisiana. In those days a discovery of the main course of a river extended to every foot of country it watered; so that Louisiana really included

32 FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH an empire more vast than La Salle had even dreamed of, enthusiast as he was. The first steps toward taking possession of Louisiana —slow and feeble steps they were, too—came from the Gulf coast, gradually working their way up from Biloxi to New Orleans, founded in 1718 by Bienville; then advancing to Natchez and the Arkansas. The trade, however, had been farmed out, first to Anthony Crozat, then to John Law,¹ whose gigantic schemes and no less gigantic failures are known to history as the Mississippi Bubble. However, an impression had been made at one end of the line. If, now, a like beginning should be made at the other end, the work of colonizing would go on twice as fast. But to do this effectively it would be necessary to draw upon Canada, both for recruits and munitions, that colony being so much more easily reached through its western posts, as well as so much more populous. It should be borne in mind that, from its first founding, Louisiana had been set off from Canada, or rather from the all-embracing New France,² to be a colony by itself, under rulers of its own. To colonies so remote a political separation was, indeed, imperatively demanded. But together they now held command of the great waterway of the continent, as the lamented La Salle had foreseen—indeed predicted. Meantime (1717), all the Illinois country had been added to Louisiana, as legitimately belonging to it, rather than to Canada, and a local governor sent there the very next year with men to begin the usual fort. The boundaries of this government were, some years later, fixed along the highlands of the Wabash, to which

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

33

the French gave the so-descriptive name of Terre Haute,³ from which that of one of Indiana’s most prosperous cities is taken. Placed thus midway between Montreal and New Orleans, it was most essential that this Illinois colony should be made self-sustaining, in part at least—should be producers as well as consumers. 4 The choice of a location was, therefore, all-important, as this condition was unusual to such undertakings, so far. Indeed, it seems to

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS OF ILLINOIS .

point to the dawning of a new era in French colonization enterprises, and was, no doubt, so regarded. Where and what was this land of new promise and new fortunes? There is found, bordering the eastern shore of the great river, like embroidery the hem of a rich mantle, a strip of land from three to six miles wide and eighty long, quite level, and of astonishing fertility. In fact, there are two levels. The low level, next the Mississippi, is always found heavily fringed with forests of 3

34

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

cottonwood, hickory, walnut, and oak; behind this a second level, everywhere open to light and sunshine, extends quite up to the outcropping limestone bluffs bounding it at the east. This beautiful tract, since known as the American Bottom, 5 begins nearly opposite the Missouri, extending thence southward along the shores. The early explorers were not far wrong in thinking it might be made the granary of all Louisiana. Here, then, where bountiful nature rewarded the feeblest and most crude husbandry with plenteous harvests, the Kaskaskias, Cahokias and Tamaroas, fugitives from their old homes on the Illinois, true to their instincts for picking out the choicest lands, had planted themselves a new since the year 1700. These villages became the seed of a second growth of French settlements, which took to themselves the tribal names, already established. The first thing done was to choose a site for the new fortress, which was meant to be as strong as its lonely situation demanded. It was found (1718) at a point a musket-shot off the river, about sixteen miles above Kaskaskia. In two years it was completed, and named Fort Chartres,6 for one of the royal princes. The traders, however, had been regular visitors here for many years. Fraternizing with the savages, as was their wont, these ubiquitous traders quickly set up their bark wigwams, threw open their packs, and spread out their trinkets to catch the trade passing up or down the Mississippi, or in and out of the Missouri—puny, but sure, forerunner of that great metropolis which has since risen, as if by magic, on the opposite bank. Another strong motive was attracting men to this far

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

35

region. None, indeed, could well be stronger. New Orleans had just been founded. The notorious John Law, of Edinburgh, had just begun turning the wisest heads of Europe—crowned heads and all—with his tales of untold riches lying hid in the virgin soil of the Mississippi. Capital only, he said, was needful to enrich everyone who should invest in his scheme. So everyone hastened to invest. No stories were too extravagant to be greedily swallowed. No time is too enlightened to be led away by its own credulity. Men saw another Mexico rising in the West, were dazzled, duped, and ruined by thousands and tens of thousands. As a consequence, since the year 1719 JOHN LAW. the French had been searching for silver mines on the Meramec, a small river which falls into the Mississippi, not far below the Missouri, and on the same side. And when Father Charlevoix, the Jesuit historian, descended the Mississippi in 1721 he found some miners hard at work there, under the authority of Law’s Company. It was while searching for silver that these miners struck a vein of galena ore, which from that time on began to be a real

36

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

source of wealth to the province, the product mostly going down the river, to New Orleans. The village of St. Philip, on the Illinois side, was founded by these miners, among whom were some slaves, thus introducing slavery into what later became the State of Illinois. The same observing writer shall describe for us the Kaskaskias villages. He first gives an account of the Cahokias and Tamaroas, with whom two missionaries, from the Seminary of Quebec, were then residing. These two tribes, being weak in numbers, had united to form one village. “Cahokia,” he says, “is situated upon a little river, coming from the east, which is dry except in spring, so that we had to travel a good half league to reach the cabins. I was much astonished at the choice of such an inconvenient situation, until told that when the village was first built the Mississippi washed the foot of it; but in three years it had receded to where I saw it. The natives were then thinking about looking up another place; no great affair for them, as we know.” From here the good father went to the Kaskaskias villages, lying on the tongue of land formed between the Kaskaskia and the Mississippi. Of them he says: “The Jesuits have here a very flourishing mission, which must shortly be divided, because two villages have been made out of one. The most populous is on the bank of the Mississippi. Fort Chartres stands half a league lower down, a musket-shot off the river. M. Dugué de Boisbriant, Canadian gentleman, commands here for the company to whom the place belongs; and all between fort and village begins to be peopled by French. Four leagues farther, at one league from the river, there is a big French village, almost all Canadians. The second Illinois village

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

37

is two leagues from it and farther inland. A fourth Jesuit is in charge here. “The French are very much at their ease here. A Fleming, servant to the Jesuits, has taught them to sow wheat, which comes forward very well. They have horned cattle and fowls. The Illinois cultivate the ground after their own manner, which is very laborious. They also raise fowls, which they sell to the French. Their women are very skilful in many ways. They spin stuffs from the hair of cattle, which, after dyeing in bright colors, they make into robes.” The impulse given by these new settlements reached out beyond them, and was quickly and widely felt. Just how long traders had been crossing the Maumee portage to the Miami villages, on the upper Wabash, is not known. But since this region had been tapped, and it was seen how a new and short route to the Mississippi, offering more profitable ventures by the way, bared its bright pathway to the infant commerce of the West, putting it to use became a foregone conclusion. “First in order, probably about 1720, came the building of Fort Ouatenon (Wah-te-non), on the north bank of the Wabash, eight miles below the city of Lafayette, Ind., whence a trail led through the forest to Fort Miami, on the Maumee. At this place the river, broken into rapids, made a portage necessary, thus fixing the site by physical laws, besides dividing the navigation between canoes above and pirogues or dugouts below. Strange to say, as to the beginnings of these Indiana posts all is obscure, though Ouatenon is thought to be the first by many years. Next in order Vincennes arose, 7 lower down the Wa-

38

FRENCH ON THE MISSISSIPPI AND WABASH

bash, on its eastern bank, and on ground finely overlooking the broad and fertile bottom lands, frequently inundated for miles by the spring freshets. It was first designed as a check to the English traders on the Ohio, to which river it broke the long journey from above. And from here communication was opened with the Illinois settlements around Fort Chartres, for which, indeed, Vincennes was the lonely outpost. Its establishment is assigned not earlier than the year 1727, and perhaps even as late as 1730. ¹ JOHN LAW’S Mississippl scheme is treated of in The Making of the Great West, p. 130, note. ² NEW F RANCE was the general name for all the French possessions on this continent, disused as the political divisions grew up, like Acadia, Canada, and Louisiana, until it became obsolete. ³ TERRE H AUTE , French for highland. 4 T H E F O U N D E R S of Louisiana paid more attention to agriculture, consequently to the bringing in of actual settlers, than the founders of Canada did. 5 A MERICAN B OTTOM . Though once so familiar, this name has long been lost, except to the older generation, in the thickly-sown settlements opposite St. Louis and that vicinity. A more interesting piece of ground in history, archæology, or physical traits would be hard to find in the West. 6 F ORT C HARTRES was no rude, stockaded block-house, like those already dotting the route to Canada, but a work em-

bodying a larger plan of defence, greater skill, and much greater outlay. Charlevoix says it stood at a musket-shot from the river. When Long visited it in August, 1819, it was a fourth of a mile from the river, and in ruins, having first been undermined by the washing of the river, which again had formed a new bank of the soils brought down by the annual rise. Long puts the cost of Fort Chartres at a million and a half of dollars— probably too high. Long’s Expedition 1, 147. Since the time of Louis XIII., the title Duc de Chartres has been hereditary in the Orleans family. 7 V INCENNES , named for Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, killed in an expedition against the Chickasaws, May, 1736. It stands at the Wabash crossing of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway. No record of its founding has yet come to light. The date given in the text is an approximation from what is attainable.

VIRGINIA MOVES TO THE OHIO, 1749

39

VIRGINIA MOVES TO THE OHIO, 1749 The Ohio Company, and what Came of it

W E have now shown, as briefly as we well could, what the French had been doing in the West for half a century or more. In thus reaching out into so many odd corners, they must have greatly relied upon the good will of the natives, since to be so widely scattered was plainly to invite attack. To do the French justice, the Indians always found them better masters than the English. We are not now explaining; we are only relating a fact. For casual traders the Indians did not much care, but for permanent settlers they felt great jealousy, as well they might. Statesmen had often said that the two races, rivals everywhere on the face of the earth, could not and would not long live together in peace on the same continent. Sooner or later the struggle was sure to come. No continent was big enough for both. They were right. Old antipathies, old traditions, old rivalries had taught an Englishman always to look upon a Frenchman as his natural enemy. This state of feeling was like the embers which a breath suffices to fan into a flame. To gain a continent was, it is true, a great object, but when we come to know how this was done, it is seen what little things sometimes sway the affairs of men. In the English colonies the presence of the French west of the Alleghanies was considered a trespass of one nation upon another’s land, because some of the colony charters ran to the Pacific. Virginia’s was so bounded; so was Connecticut’s. The popular notion was that hav-

40

VIRGINIA MOVES TO THE OHIO, 1749

ing thus slipped themselves into what did not belong to them, the French ought to be turned out neck and heels. And there was a vague feeling abroad that some day this would have to be done. Still, so long as there was so much vacant land east of the Alleghanies, people cared less about this question of sovereignty than they would if the future of the imperial West could have been revealed to them—much less. But the man bold enough to predict that, in another century, the Ohio valley would be the home of millions of men, had not yet been born. Less indeed was known of it than is known about the farthest corners of the earth to-day. That far-off country was looked upon as the predestined home of savage hordes, against whom the Alleghanies lifted their lofty summits as a protecting wall. Traders and land speculators were here a direct means of drawing England and France into a quarrel, before either was really ready for it. Old treaties gave to traders of both nations the right freely to come and go among the western tribes. They were, however, a class of men who paid little attention to such things as treaties; still less to the rights of other men. The French traders we know already. The English “were often rough, lawless men; half Indians in dress and habits; prone to brawls, and sometimes deadly in their feuds. They were generally in the employ of some chief trader, who, at the head of his retainers and pack-horses, would make his way over mountains and through forests to the banks of the Ohio, establish his head-quarters in some Indian town, and disperse his followers to traffic among the hamlets, hunting-camps, and wigwams, exchanging blankets, gaudy-colored cloth,

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trinketry, powder, shot, and rum for valuable furs and peltry.”¹ This was all the commerce of the Great West one hundred and fifty years ago. On the part of the English, it was being monopolized by the Pennsylvanians. Let us first follow their adventurous excursions. The route to the Ohio first used by the Indians of Pennsylvania, then by the traders, led from the Juniata across the Alleghanies to the Alleghany River. As fast as the whites moved up from the coast the Indians fell back before them, so that in about fifty years the advancing whites had pushed the Delawares and Shawnees quite over the mountains into the Ohio valley. The English traders had followed them to their new homes, and they were still considered friendly to English interests. Their new villages lay on the Scioto and Muskingum,² with trails running off through the forests to the Miami and Pottawatomie towns along the divide. We are thus able to locate the Indian populations of Ohio with approximate fidelity. Scattered bands of both these nations had lingered along the course of the Alleghany, as if reluctant to leave the graves of their fathers. With some migratory Iroquois, they now formed a sort of connecting link between the Ohio tribes and that great confederacy whose adherents they were. Though nominally friendly, the belief that they had been cheated of their lands still rankled in the breasts of many. If, now, we look at what seems the natural course of things, the Ohio valley seems most tributary to the English, inasmuch as its two great branches spring from the western gorges of the Alleghanies, so making them natural routes, the one from Pennsylvania, the other from

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Virginia and Maryland. The Pennsylvania traders quite early appropriated the Alleghany to their own use, while the Virginians as naturally took to the Monongahela. As these two very divergent routes came together at last, it was not long before a strong rivalry grew up between the rival traders—a dangerous rivalry, too, as it proved, to all but the French. Since the lakes were their great natural route to the sea, the French had first planted themselves along the divide separating the waters flowing to the lakes and to the Ohio, thinking it easier, perhaps, thus to draw that trade up to them than attempt to occupy all that vast valley themselves. They had thus left that door open. But when the English traders began to carry their wares to the heads of the Muskingum, the Scioto, and the Miami, as they did after the year 1747, the French saw at once that the Ohio was lost to them, unless they did occupy it, and war was the result. The story is soon told. Alarmed at the foothold the English were getting among them, the Governor of Canada, in the summer of 1749, sent Céloron (Say-lo-ron) de Bienville to warn them away. He was also instructed to reaffirm French sovereignty over the Ohio valley. Céloron’s expedition reached the Alleghany by way of Niagara and Lake Chautauqua. Here began the comedy of taking formal possession of what they said was theirs already, in the old pompous feudal way. A plate of lead, with an inscription setting forth this act, was buried at the foot of a tree with the greatest solemnity. Another was deposited four leagues below French Creek; and as they went on, always haranguing the Indians, who watched all these proceedings sharply and suspiciously, similar plates were buried at the mouths of Wheeling

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Creek, the Muskingum, Great Kanawha, and Miami, so affirming control of all the chief feeders of the Beautiful River, as the French loved to call it,³ by putting the proofs out of sight. This party then made its way home by way of the Great Miami, and across the long Maumee portage to Lake Erie. To Céloron’s deep disgust, wherever he went, even to the head of the Miami itself, he found one or more English traders, whom the Indians had received with open arms because they undersold the French. At Logstown 4 he found ten. These were all warned off. The same thing occurred at Scioto, and again at Piqua,5 one hundred and fifty miles up the Miami, where these intruders had actually built a trading-house, and hoisted the English flag over it. Meantime (1749), some influential Virginians, two of whom were brothers of George Washington, secured a grant of 500,000 acres of land on the Ohio, between the Monongahela and Great Kanawha, with the declared purpose of settling it with white people. These associates called themselves The Ohio Company.6 One hundred families were to be located on the tract within seven years, a fort built, and a garrison maintained for their protection. As this project was set on foot by Virginians for the benefit of that colony, a trading-house was begun at Wills’ Creek, 7 a branch of the Potomac nearest the Youghiogheny, a branch of the Ohio, whence a wagon-road was to cross the intervening mountain ridge. Opposition being expected from the French, and more than feared from the Indians, great secrecy was observed with regard to the company’s intentions.

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While the perambulating traders were only a cause of irritation to the French, this scheme struck at the very root of their alleged sovereignty, and was so regarded. Furthermore, the home government had promised its protection in case of need. Christopher Gist, 8 a hardy pioneer, was despatched (1750) across the mountains to look up and locate the best lands for the company. Gist first went among the tribes north of the Ohio, who told him that, “If the French claim the rivers which run into the lakes, then those which run into the Ohio belong to us and our brothers the English.” They, however, tried in every way to dissuade him from going down the river. But Gist would not turn back. With great caution he made his way to within a few miles of the Falls, 9 when some distant gunshots warned him that to go farther would be dangerous. He, therefore, prudently turned back to the Kentucky River. “From the top of a mountain in the vicinity, he had a view to the southwest, as far as the eye could reach, over a vast woodland country in the fresh garniture of spring, and watered by abundant streams, but as yet only the hunting-ground of savage tribes and the scenes of their sanguinary combats. In a word, half Kentucky lay spread out before him in all its wild magnificence.” Again, the next year (1751), Gist made a survey of the company’s lands as far down as the Great Kanawha. One day, while thus employed, an old Delaware Indian thus accosted him: “Brother,” said he, “the French claim all the land on one side of the Ohio, the English claim all on the other side—now where does the Indians’ land lie?” Though so much pains were taken to keep it a secret

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the French soon found out what was going on, and promptly moved to defeat it. Here nature remarkably befriended them. One of the head streams of the Ohio reached to within fifteen miles of Lake Erie. To unite Lake Erie with the Ohio by a chain of military posts, similar to those already established at the West, would have the effect either to turn the English back, or bring on a collision, which the French said they were ready for, if the English were not. Governor Duquesne 10 therefore sent an expedition in the spring of 1753 to seize the above indicated route. This party landed at Presquisle,11 now Erie, where a fort of logs was soon made ready for those who were to occupy it. FRENCH MILITARY LINE, LAKE ERIE TO THE This was to be their OHIO, 1755. dépôt or base. From here a road five leagues long was cut through the forest to the head of French Creek, down which, in the season of high water, a canoe would float to the Alleghany, and so on to the Ohio. At the end of this portage a second fort,

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called Le Bœuf, was built. A third was to have completed the chain, at the old Indian town of Venango; 12 but owing to the exhaustion of the party, worn down by its labors, this could not be built before winter set in. The main purpose was, however, for the present secured by seizing the house of John Fraser, 13 an English trader, and turning that into a temporary garrison. As this new route between the Ohio and the lakes had been seized in defiance of the local tribes, they were very indignant. But when they protested against it, the French commandant mocked them with these bitter words: “Child,” said he, “you talk foolishly. You say this land belongs to you; there is not the black of my nail yours. It is my land, and I will have it, let who will stand up against me. I am not afraid of flies and mosquitoes, for as such I consider the Indians. I tell you that down the river I will go, and build upon it. If it were blocked up, I have forces sufficient to burst it open, and trample down all who oppose me. My force is as the sands upon the seashore. Here is your wampum; I fling it at you.” Such energetic measures as these simply amazed the slow-moving Pennsylvanians and Virginians. Governor Dinwiddie was especially indignant, since the invaded territory was claimed by Virginia. It seemed to him that not an hour should be lost in cutting off the French from the Ohio, before they could make their threatened descent in the spring. And this might yet be done by building a fort at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers. The governor was quite right. Unless this was done, farewell to the hopes and schemes of the Ohio Company, farewell to the profitable trips of the English traders! The Alleghanies would indeed have become an impassable barrier.

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Before taking any decisive steps, it was thought best to go through with the empty form of warning off these impudent intruders. This would make a national question of it. A pompous summons to depart was, therefore, drawn up. The next thing was to find a messenger. Governor Dinwiddie looked well about him. His choice fell upon George Washington, a young Virginia planter wholly unknown to fame, but who had seen something of the hardships of frontier life, as well as tasted of its wondrous fascinations. Thackeray calls him “a road surveyor 14 a t a g u i n e a a d a y . ” T h e s i t u a t i o n a n d strength of these new posts being but imperfectly known, Washington was enjoined to made good use of his eyes and ears. The young soldier promptly accepted the trust, though its execution promised to be no easy task, and on October 30, 1753, he set out from Williamsburg for the far frontier and an undying fame. ¹ IRVING’S Washington is here quoted. ² BOTH D ELAWARES and Shawnees were allotted this location by their masters, the Iroquois. The Shawnees’ chief town was where Portsmouth now is, with a suburb, across the Ohio, on the Kentucky shore. From here a trail led northwest 150 miles, to Piqua, or Pickawillany, the Miami town—see note 5. This was Gist’s route in 1750. The Delawares appear to have stretched themselves out, across the country, between the Scioto and Muskingum, the Shawnees doing the same lower down, next the Ohio. Besides these the Wyandots had a village at the mouth of the Muskingum. ³ ONE OF THE buried plates, found near Marietta, is now in the cabinet of the American Antiquarian Society. That buried at the Great Kanawha also came to light. 4 L oGSTOWN is located on Mitchell’s Map (1755) a few miles below Pittsburg, on the north bank of the Ohio. It was a

rendezvous for Pennsylvania traders, of rather evil reputation. 5 P IQUA , or Pickawillany, was sacked by hostile Indians, under Langlade, in 1752, and some of the English traders there carried off as captives. 6 T HE O HIO C OMPANY . Marshall ( Life of Washington) says it was the Ohio Company that brought on the war. It did little else. The company had full power to take lands either north or south of the Ohio, or as far down as they liked. 7 W ILLS’ CREEK , now Cumberland, was then, and after, a strategic point, on account of the mountain gap by which the route was shortened to the tributaries of the Monongahela. This indicates its importance as a starting-point. 8 C HRISTOPHER G IST was living on the Yadkin when called to this work. Later on, but before war broke out, he settled in the valley beyond the Laurel Ridge, Pa., near the crossing of the Youghiogheny. Eleven families joined him here.

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T HE F ALLS , now Louisville, Ky. D UQUESNE , MARQUIS , succeeded La Jonquière as governor, at the latter’s death. 1 1 PRESQUISLE, two French words meaning a peninsula; literally, almost an island. 1 2 V ENANGO , now Franklin, Pa. 1 0

13 J OHN F RASER , trader and gunsmith, then went to the mouth of Turtle Creek on the Monongahela. His house figures in Braddock’s battle. 1 4 B ETWEEN 1770 and 1772 Washington made two surveys in the northeast corner of Kentucky, in Greenup, Boyd, and Lawrence counties.

THE BUILDING OF FORT DUQUESNE

W H E N young George Washington rode out of Winchester, proud of being intrusted with a mission so important, he was turning his back upon the frontier settlement of Virginia. He and his half dozen hardy companions were all well mounted, their baggage was strapped to the backs of pack-horses, driven before them along the one narrow path then joining the valley of the Potomac with the valley of the Ohio. Only by a free use of their hatchets could this blind and rugged trail be made broad enough for the little cavalcade to pass over it. Often they would have to dismount to drag their balky animals on by the bit, or to tighten their girths, as through sticky bogs or wiry thickets they forced their way onward. By just such little details do we realize the fact that, no longer than one hundred and forty years ago, the West really began at the eastern foot of the Alleghanies. The route lay first up the Potomac to Wills’ Creek, where the faithful woodsman, Gist, joined them as guide, thence out over the mountain ridge to the Youghiogheny, and down that stream to its mouth. Thus are the rivers ever the first engineers. This long stretch of wilderness was safely passed. Upon reaching the Ohio, Washington did not fail to

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shortly before. The French flag was now flying over Fraser’s house. Upon learning Washington’s business there, he was told that he must go on to the next fort, where he would find the officer in chief command. Four more tedious days were spent in getting to Fort Le Bœuf, at the portage, where the Virginian envoy was welcomed with studied politeness by Legardeur St. Pierre, the commandant. To him Washington handed Governor Dinwiddie’s despatch. After being kept waiting some days—days improved by storing his mind with every detail of the fort—Washington was dismissed with a sealed reply, with which he set out on his return. Winter had now set in. The Alleghany was filled with floating ice, which threatened to crush their frail canoes like egg-shells. Often they would have to jump into the ice-cold water to lift them over some perilous shallow. Once they found their way blocked by an icegorge, extending from bank to bank, so that the canoes had to be carried through the woods, till open water was found again. After leaving Venango, the party journeyed on foot, to save their jaded animals, Washington shouldering rifle and pack like the rest, and all trudged wearily on, through the deep snow, with only some distant peak to guide them. Finding the march could not be hastened, Washington took Gist with him, bade the lagging cavalcade push on as fast as possible, and these two then struck boldly out through the woods for the forks of the Ohio. They had plenty of adventures by the way. At one time Washington narrowly missed being shot by an Indian, who was treacherously leading them astray. At

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another Gist came near being frozen to death, at one of their cheerless bivouacs without fire or shelter. At last they came out of the woods, on the banks of the Alleghany. The stream must be crossed. With their only hatchet they built a raft, on which they pushed out upon the dark-flowing river. Swift and strong ran the current. For a time they forced their way on through the floating ice, with the aid of setting-poles. Suddenly, when halfway across, the crazy, ill-built raft stuck fast in an ice-jam and the luckless navigators had to abandon it in haste. Fortunately, they had stranded near an island, which they succeeded in reaching, half dead and wet to the skin. This night Gist’s hands FORT DUQUESNÉ. and feet were badly frozen. The next luckily brought them to Fraser’s house, on the Monongahela. Beyond here a pack-train was met, laden with materials for building a new fort at the forks of the Ohio. With it were a few families, going to settle there. Washington reached Winchester without further adventures. The French commandant had answered that he should continue to hold the country, until ordered out

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of it by his own superiors. And that was all the English got for their pains. In the spring, the French came down the Alleghany, as they said they would, turned out the Virginians from their half-built fort, and sent them home, with a warning not to be found there again. They then raised their own flag over the work, now named by them Fort Duquesne. Again, they had been too quick for the slow-moving English. Their new line was completed. Meantime, Washington had started off again, with a small body of Virginians, to strengthen this fort, but at Wills’ Creek he learned what had happened from the ejected builders, who came straggling in there from across the mountains. His next step was impulsively taken. But we must remember that he was as yet an untried soldier, smarting under the sense of defeat. Without waiting for orders, he determined to take up a more advanced position, where he could perhaps strike the French to advantage, or at any rate keep an eye upon them. After getting well on toward Fort Duquesne, he heard that the French were also out looking for him. Washington marched to meet them. Having tracked them to their camp, his men rushed to the attack, killing or taking the whole detachment, including the leader, who was shot down at the first fire. Not doubting that he would soon be attacked in his turn, Washington now fell back to the Great Meadows, where he hurriedly fortified his camp as well as he could with pickets and a ditch. His provisions being spent, he was in danger of being starved, even before he was attacked, and on this account the place was called Fort Necessity.

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Washington’s fears were fully realized when, on July 3, 1754, his pickets were driven in, firing began all around the camp, and all signs showed that he was surrounded by a very superior force. After skirmishing all day, in a pouring rain, and finding he could hold out no longer, Washington agreed to give up the post, on condition of being allowed to march out unmolested. It thus fell out that the building of a log fort to command the Ohio had brought on actual war. The struggle for the possession of the Great West now passed from words to deeds. But with their unbroken chain of posts, their dépôts so conveniently placed, their Indian alliances so secured by the prestige of a first success, the French entered upon the conflict with strong advantage. “It was strange,” says Thackeray, “that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania a young Virginian officer should fire a shot, and waken up a war which was to last for sixty years, which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the great Western republic, to rage over the Old World when extinguished in the New, and of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest to leave the prize of the greatest fame with him who struck the first blow.”

JOIN or DIE T HE above picture, with its warning words, was printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette, after news of the taking of Duquesne reached Philadelphia. Cut and motto were Benjamin Franklin’s, and together they put the whole situation in the colonies in a nutshell. Everybody could understand the picture; all feel the warning. But England could not, or would not, understand why her colonies, which were to the French as ten to one, should want her help. The truth is that England’s selfish policy kept the colonies practically defenceless as against a military colony like Canada. She was so afraid of their coming to know their own strength, that when it came to opposing Canada, it could not be done effectively for want of united effort. Canada was always on a war footing; the American colonies were not. In all Canada there was but one will, while in the American colonies there were as many wills as there were governors or legislatures. Besides in Canada there was always a certain number of regular troops, that could be marched off to Detroit or Duquesne, by instant order of the governor-general. In the American colonies there were neither regular troops, officers, nor arsenals, so that

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no such prompt action could be taken. Worse still, these colonies never did pull together. Complete independence of each other made them regard their own interests first of all, and their neighbors very much in the light of foreigners. Virginia was jealous of Pennsylvania’s moves in the West; Pennsylvania more so of Virginia. There was no want of men, money, or martial spirit, except among the Quakers, but a united purpose was everywhere sadly lacking. Out of a state of dependence there had grown up such a habit of dependence upon England that unless England herself took action, it was plain that the colonies would hardly exert themselves to any useful purpose, even to fight their own battles. “Well, then,” said King George, “if England finds the soldiers to fight their battles for them it is but fair they should pay them.” Cheap bargaining that between a king and his subjects! To this the colonies very plainly replied: “It is as much England’s battle as ours, so long as we are part and parcel of the empire. Look at Canada! French soldiers are sent out there to fight us, who are paid out of the public chest, and you say we must pay yours ourselves.” “Very well,” said the crafty king, “we will advance the money ourselves from our royal chest, merely taxing you for its repayment.” “No,” said the colonies again, “we will do our part in our own way, but as this is practically the same proposal disguised, submit to be taxed, without a voice in your Parliament, we will not.” And there the matter was dropped. The colonies here established a principle, tersely phrased as “No taxation without representation.” And that is where they were right. Seeing that the colonies could not fight the French alone, and would not hire English soldiers to help them,

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for that was just what the king’s proposal amounted to, England resolved first of all to whip the French, and reckon with the colonies afterward, but to do it in such a way as to avoid a formal declaration of war. As both countries had but lately ceased from a long and bloody war, neither was half eager to renew it. They therefore kept up the same show of friendship at home, while quietly shipping off soldiers to fight one another across the Atlantic. This was wittily likened to two neighbors throwing stones at one another over the wall. And as both acted with about equal duplicity, perhaps the least said about honor the better. After careful consideration, it was secretly planned to attack all the French forts from Lake Champlain to the Ohio, take or destroy them, and so utterly to defeat the declared purpose of crowding the English back behind the Alleghanies, and keeping them there. To make success sure, these attacks were to be made at all points at once. So much, at least, was decided upon over the council table in England. Nothing is more simple than to trace out a plan of campaign on a map; nothing easier than to traverse lakes, mountains, or wildernesses with the forefinger. Here we march, there fight; and, presto, the thing is done. This plan covered a thousand miles of frontier, a great part of which was inaccessible for want of roads. Even the genius of a Cæsar or a Napoleon could not march an army across the Alps without a road, and here were mountains over which no carriage had ever passed. By common consent the mastery of the Ohio valley was the most important object of all; hence the greatest effort of all was to be put forth against Fort Duquesne. Should that fall, the French would be driven from the

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valley back to the lakes; should Niagara and Frontenac fall, they would be driven out of Lake Ontario, and their relaxing grasp torn from the West. For fifty years it had been constantly said in the colonies, “The French must be driven out of Canada; we shall have no peace while they remain.” It now began to look as if what had been so long hoped for might really come to pass. Throughout the colonies there was a general awakening to the possibility—a listening for the tap of the wardrum. England, therefore, first directed the assembling of a convention or congress of delegates, from each colony, to secure the alliance of the Iroquois, that being a step of the first importance. This congress met at Albany, June 14, 1754, and after listening to some very plain talk from the Iroquois chiefs, every word of which was true, engaged them in its cause, with the understanding that this time the French would certainly be driven out of Canada, bag and baggage.¹ Something more was done. Benjamin Franklin, who had first thrown out his idea by a rude picture, and who was a member of this congress, had drawn up a plan² to remedy the evils arising from a want of union. It took at once. His plan was agreed to, but never put in force, because, as we have said, England did not wish the colonies to know their own power, and Franklin’s plan promised to build up a powerful confederacy, quite like that set up in New England in 1643, with similar objects.³ But the seed had been sowed. It was most natural that when the chief men of the colonies came together they should talk over their own needs, compare their grievances, harmonize conflicting interests and so get in touch with each other, as every one felt they ought, but no-

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body suggested. And though unsuccessful at this time, the plan took deep root in the minds of all thinking men. ¹ THE I ROQUOIS had to be first placated. They alleged first that it was their lands that the French and English were quarrelling about, and second, that the English had made paths and built forts through it without their consent. To this Conrad Weiser, the interpreter, replied as follows: “Brethren: The road to Ohio is no new road. It is an old and frequented road, the Shawnees and Delawares removed thither above thirty years ago from Pennsylvania, ever since which that road has been travelled by our traders at their invitation and always with safety, until within these few years that the French with their usual

faithlessness sent armies there, threatened the Indians, and obstructed our trade with them.”—Doc. Hist. of N. Y., ii., 585. ² FRANKLIN ’S PLAN is said to be nearly identical with that outlined in 1722, in the preface to a tract entitled, “A Description of the Province of South Carolina,” by Daniel Coxe. But the New England Colonies had formed their confederacy on similar lines eighty years before. ³ THOMAS P OWNALL , a member of this congress, and later Governor of Massachusetts, submitted to the Earl of Halifax the danger of such a union to Great Britain.

THE TRAGEDY OF FORT DUQUESNE “Who would have thought it?”

To take Duquesne two battalions of regular troops, with suitable artillery, were sent over, under command of General Braddock,¹ who was to have a like number of provincials, so raising his whole force above two thousand men. In later wars this would have been a mere detachment, but in those days it passed for a large army. It was not, however, so much the numbers, as the results, that were of importance to this campaign, and these twenty odd hundred men were considered quite enough to take Duquesne, if properly led.² And so they were. Knowing but vaguely what the service was to be, the home ministry had sent over a general as ignorant as themselves. He was an indolent officer of the Guards, very soldierlike, very pompous, called very brave,

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and bred in the same school as his patron, the Duke of Cumberland, who had the management of this war. The army was to take the old route, partly opened the year before by Washington —a hundred and twenty odd miles of shaggy wilderness, whose numerous obstacles gave the enemy just so much more time to get ready in.³ Workmen were now widening this old trail; but miles upon miles of forest must first be cut through, miles of logs laid down over a hundred sticky bogs, steep banks dug away, hollows filled up, bridges thrown across no end of streams, which, at every crook and turn, came darting across the axemen’s way. And this battle with the wilBRADDOCK’S ROUTE. derness must be fought out first of all. There was no strategy whatever about this campaign. If its difficulties and its dangers vividly recall one of

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Hannibal’s great marches, the comparison there ends, for anything more useless in a military sense would be hard to conceive. Braddock had a foretaste given him of what was to come, in marching up to Fort Cumberland, his real starting-point. However, here he was, at last, and no road open yet. He had been given to understand it would be ready as soon as he was. Like all headstrong men, the general was choleric; so he did not mince matters, but fell to abusing everybody who had a hand in the work, from the governor down. It must be confessed that his doing so put a little more life into them. In truth, it was not so much what his patron, the duke, had said to him about surprises, or even Franklin’s well-meant hints at Indian ambuscades, as that long, hard march to Duquesne that troubled Braddock; and now that he stood looking off, in deep thought, at the dim and distant peaks of the Alleghanies, they, in turn looking down on him in majestic mockery, we may fancy him saying to himself, twenty times a day, “How shall I ever get there?” That was not all. Braddock found himself without wagons, and of what use was a road without wagons, when every pound of bread and meat must go along with the army? This apathy on all sides was more than Braddock’s quick temper could endure, so again he stormed at everyone without stint. Of course, those most to blame were the most angry. An undercurrent of dislike began to make itself felt in camp. Then, to make matters worse, Braddock could not help turning up his aristocratic nose at the awkward Virginia recruits, who liked him none the better for it from that day forth. It was well that Franklin set himself to scouring the

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country round for wagons. Soon they began coming in from all quarters. In short, all these mishaps had a tendency to injure Braddock’s prospects in advance. The army had not yet seen him fight, but too often had heard him swear. Fortunately, again, Washington had joined the army, as an aid to Braddock. Washington knew the country, and he knew the enemy, too, but in those days a British general was so great a man that for a simple provincial colonel to proffer advice seemed downright presumption. The Virginan was, however, equal to it, in an emergency. Several other men of mark were with GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN. this army—Thomas Gage for one, Horatio Gates for another, Hugh Mercer for another, and last, but not least, among the unnoticed wagoners rode Daniel Morgan, the “bravest of the brave.” Upon finding that Braddock meant to march in the good old-fashioned way—grenadiers in front, flankers out, if the ground would permit—Washington ventured to suggest that the Virginians would be in their proper element beating up the woods at the front. Braddock

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had laughed heartily at Franklin’s dark hints, but advice from an aid, and a provincial at that, was too much. So, though the best in the world, it was haughtily rejected. After being forty years a soldier, the general thought himself too old to learn his trade over again from these raw recruits. He was a thorough-going martinet, cold-blooded as an Iroquois, brave as a lion, and obstinate as a mule. By this time all those who had got warmed up over the expedition, when its prospects were good, had cooled off. Officers and men alike foresaw that it was going to be no pleasure-jaunt, under such a leader. At length, on June l0th, the army filed off into the forest. From that day forth until its return, broken and defeated, it was as completely lost to all sight and knowledge of men, as if an ocean had swallowed it up. Once in the mountains all order was lost. The main thing was how to get the guns and wagons along; and the doing this proved a truly herculean task. In some of the steepest places the guns would have to be hitched along with tackles made fast to rocks or trees, at which a gang of sailors, lent to Braddock for the purpose, would waken the echoes with their shouts, as they hauled cheerily away at the ropes. Thus the army crept up the great mountain wall from day to day. And from day to day new difficulties were to be met and overcome. Luckily for them, the soldiers were to get broken into this sort of thing before they found the enemy, or Braddock’s march might have ended among the gloomy defiles of the Laurel Ridge. On the 16th the advance reached Washington’s old camp at Little Meadows. It had been such dreadfully slow work that, by Washington’s advice, Braddock

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decided to push on ahead with a picked column, twelve hundred strong, carrying everything on pack-horses, and leaving Colonel Dunbar to come on more slowly with the train. The two divisions then separated. Three weeks more the leading division wound its toilsome way down the rugged mountain steeps, watched from every height by lurking enemies. From time to time the sharp crack of a rifle told them that these tireless scouts were dogging their footsteps to pick off stragglers. Now and then, a wounded man would be carried by to the rear. There is nothing like it to make men prick up their ears and keep their ranks. They had passed the Youghiogheny, and were now winding along the wooded bottoms of the Monongahela, and these shots were a sure sign that they were nearing their journey’s end. Again Washington begged hard to have the rangers thrown out to clear the way for the troops. Again he was unsuccessful. At the smell of powder so near, all Braddock’s fatal obstinacy seemed to increase tenfold. So the unconsidered Virginians continued to bring up the rear. On July 8th Braddock went into camp on the banks of the Monongahela, some fifteen miles from Duquesne. That meant that to-morrow would see warm work. Scouts had gone quite up to the fort, without seeing any force between them. This report naturally threw the English off their guard. Everything seemed working famously. The army was in excellent spirits, the enemy within striking distance, and all quiet. Once more, and for the last time, Washington begged Braddock to give the riflemen their proper place and work, at the outposts. It was to no purpose. The infatuated general only flew into a rage. The order of

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march could not be changed, or the post of honor given up to undisciplined provincials. July 9th the army turned out at break of day, in full uniform. Though now on the same side of the river as Duquesne, the hills here crowded down upon the stream so closely as to make a defile, difficult to force if the enemy should be met there. The other bank was more open. It was, therefore, decided to turn these hills by crossing the river twice, and again striking the trail at Fras e r ’ s h o u s e 4, only a short eight-miles from the fort. It turned out to be a very PLAN OF BRADDOCK’S FIELD. unfortunate decision, involving a fatal loss of time, as the march was considerably lengthened thereby. Braddock seems to have thought that if the savages were lying in ambush for him, his advance-guard would put them up like partridges from their covert. His advance was now led by Colonel Gage, who had with him some two hundred and fifty men, besides a few guides or scouts. Some accounts give him three hundred. As soon as it was light, Gage passed both fords without seeing an enemy. Behind him came a working party, of

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the same strength as his own, which fell to work sloping off the banks, before the main body should come up with the guns. By the time this was done, the head of the rear division was seen marching up to the crossing.

BRADDOCK ’S FIELD.

The Monongahela flows here with a sluggish current between rather high sandbanks. Braddock no doubt thought that since the enemy had not disputed the crossing, it was not likely he would make a stand between it and the fort. As if to show his contempt for prudent counsels Braddock had decided to make all the noise he could that morning. It was going to be an out-and-out field-day 5

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with him. Strange sounds now broke the stillness of those forest wilds. At the order to march all the fifes and drums struck up their liveliest tunes, standards were unfurled to the breeze, bayonets flashed brightly in the sun, as to the martial strains the troops moved briskly off in close order, reaching the second ford at about noon. Finding this in Gage’s hands, Braddock halted to let the men eat their dinners here, and at one they began crossing. As soon as the army was well closed up, Gage moved off on the trail to the fort, which here struck off from the river across a broad strip of bottom, grown up with grass to the knees, and, after reaching higher ground, again ran with the river. Gage was looking sharply out for the enemy, while, with pick and shovel, the working party cleared the way behind him for the passage of the main body, seven to eight hundred strong. This rising ground, of fatal celebrity, merits a brief description. It was an open wood, grown up with bushes or rank grass, in which the path was soon lost. All was silent, save the drowsy hum of bees among the wild bloom, or the tapping of a stray woodpecker on some decaying, but still stately, monarch of the forest. These familiar sounds could hardly prefigure, even to a soldier’s ears, the whizzing of bullets or the strokes of a tomahawk. The French, at Duquesne, had been put in a pretty fright ever since they knew what force was approaching them. Their counsels were divided. Some were for sticking by the fort, some for leaving it, some of the bolder sort for making a sally. Among those who urged this course, not with any hope of victory indeed, but to strike one good blow for it, was a dashing young soldier called Beaujeu, who finally prevailed upon the command-

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ant to let him go. Beaujeu, therefore, instantly led out a mixed force of French regulars, Canadians, and savages, nine hundred in all, meaning to ambuscade the ford, and

BEAUJEU LEADS THE ENEMY ON.

if possible stop the English there. But before he could reach it Gage was met, drawn up across the road. Each party saw the other at the same instant. Euro-

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pean against savage tactics were now put to decisive trial. Beaujeu waved his hat for his men to run to cover, while Gage, thinking he was going to be overwhelmed by a rush, first ordered his grenadiers to fix bayonets, and then, quickly undeceived by the bullets now coming thick and fast, to return the fire, which they did with a will. Almost at this first volley, Beaujeu fell dead, and those nearest him were scattered in confusion, but others were constantly coming up to take their places, so that the enemy were soon giving Gage two shots for his one. Gage’s men stood this well for a time, cheering and firing away at what they could see, or whenever a puff of smoke revealed an enemy. Above the rattle of musketry there rose such unearthly and discordant yells as shook even the stoutest nerves. This standing up to be picked off like pigeons on a roost, was more than flesh and blood could bear. At last Gage himself was hit. The men began to fall back, then to run, sweeping up the working party as they went, and carrying it along with them down upon the main body, like the débris of some furious torrent. Close at their heels, like wolves made furious by the taste of blood, came the yelling and whooping enemy. The fugitives threw the advancing column into a confusion from which it was never allowed to rally. As Braddock rode up from the rear, all fire and wrath at this check, he found the officers vainly trying to form a front against the fire now pelting them from all sides at once. In vain he himself stormed at the men. If they had been armed with clubs and spears they could not have been more helpless against an enemy felt, but not seen. There they stood, huddled together like sheep, wholly incapable of striking one good blow in their own defence.

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And meantime, as if answering to the roll-call of the reaper, Death, the soldiers were falling out fast. The artillery was unlimbered. The gunners saw nothing to fire at but the trees, and only added to the frightful noises raging around them. One brave effort was made, by a handful of men, to drive the enemy from some high ground, from which there came a most destructive fire. It was unsuccessful. The Virginians, called up at last, made heroic efforts to stem the tide of disaster. All was useless. It was too late. The fate of the vanguard was, in truth, but a foretaste of what was to befall the main body. A living target, it stood there for three terrible hours, palsied by fear, until little by little it was torn to pieces. Behind it lay the river, so lately crossed in all the pomp and pride of anticipated triumph, now likely to be the grave of all who should try to recross it in the face of the murderous redskins. All this Braddock fully realized, but, bulldog-like, he seemed rather resolved to be hacked in pieces than yield the ground. And still the slaughter went on. The riflemen did something toward keeping down the enemy’s fire; more they could not do at that late hour. At last, after three-fourths of his officers and men had fallen, and when dropping shots began to be heard back at the river, Braddock gave the order to retreat. And it was high time. The men could no longer be held in that slaughter-pen. They now broke away in one headlong rush for the river. While making a last effort for an orderly retreat, a ball brought Braddock bleeding to the ground. All was now over. The terrified fugitives forded the river under a shower of bullets, not even stopping after they had put it between them and their pursuers, who,

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weary with carnage, now fell to plundering the baggage and to stripping the dead. The wounded were tomahawked and scalped without mercy. On that bloodstained field there lay stretched out at nightfall, food for wolves and vultures, the bodies of seven hundred men, victims to the obstinacy of their dying commander.5 So well had the enemy kept in their hiding-places, that many of

BRADDOCK DOWN.

the officers had been in the fight would not say that they had seen even one redskin. This closed the most disgraceful day known to British military annals. The rest is soon told. The fugitives did not stop running till they got to Dunbar’s camp, 6 full sixty miles back on the road, thus covering, in a night and a day, what it had taken them ten days to get over before. Not knowing what else to do, Dunbar, in his

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turn, retreated first to Fort Cumberland and then to Philadelphia. News of the dreadful calamity travelled fast and far, spreading horror, shame, dismay as it went. Never before had the colonies bowed to such a stroke as this. They could hardly believe the reports that came dropping in piecemeal, until all the dismal story was told. Many a cheek grew pale at the thought that it was now time to look to themselves, as nothing could now keep the triumphant savages from pouring down upon them over Braddock’s own road. Braddock!—he, poor general, died of his wounds after reaching the Great Meadows, there finding in a soldier’s grave full and entire immunity from the reproaches that everywhere followed the mention of his name.7 Once only did he open his lips on the night of the battle, to feebly articulate the words, so full of meaning for him, “Who would have thought it?” ¹ GE N E R A L E D W A R D B R A D D O C K : Franklin says of him, “This general was, I think, a brave man, and might probably have made a good figure in some European war. But he had too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, too mean a one of both Americans and Indians.”— Autobiography. Horace Walpole has several anecdotes of Braddock, repeated in Irving’s Washington, Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe, etc. “Desperate in his fortunes, brutal in his behavior, obstinate in his sentiments, he was still intrepid and capable,” says Walpole. Taken together, these two estimates probably hit off Braddock quite accurately. ² THE TWO BATTALIONS of regulars, 44th and 48th, were recruited, from 500. to 700 men each, in Virginia. The provincials numbered 450 more, and there

was a train of artillery, with some sailors to assist in getting it over the mountains. The whole amounted to 2,200 combatants. The regular battalions were commanded by Sir Peter Halket and Colonel Thomas Dunbar. ³ IN PROOF OF THIS , it is known that the French had time to call in their Indians even from beyond the Mississippi and Missouri. Both Osage villages sent all the warriors who could be spared. The commandant at Fort Chartres supplied them with powder and ball. The Otoes were also in the battle, and even the Kansas reached Duquesne just after it.—Pike’s Expedition, Appendix, ii., 15. 4 F RASER’S HOUSE was at the mouth of Turtle Creek. From here an old path led to the fort. Washington had stopped here, on his way home from Fort Le Bœuf: see ante.

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5 B R A D D O C K ’ s F I E L D . “September 1 (1760), Samuel Dominshear and myself set off through the woods for Braddock’s field; and when we came to the place where they crossed of the river Monongahela, we saw a great many men’s bones along the shore. We kept along the road about 1½ miles, where the first engagement began, where there are men’s bones lying about as thick as leaves do on the ground.”—Journal of Colonel Jehu Eyre, P e n n a , Magazine.

6 D UNBAR ’S CAMP was about five miles east of Uniontown. Though clearly right in falling back to Fort Cumberland, his further retreat was scarcely justifiable, as it threw the whole frontier open. 7 B R A D D O C K ’ s G R A V E : “We rode this day over our English General Braddock’s grave. To prevent the Indians, then in pursuit, from discovering his body, he ordered it to be buried in the midst of the road, at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains.”—Faux’s Travels, p. 164.

THE HIGHLANDER’S STORY [From Sandford and Merton]

“ ONE morning the way before us appeared more intricate and obscure than usual; the forest did not, as was generally the case, consist of lofty trees, which afford a tolerably clear prospect between their trunks, but were composed of creeping bushes and impervious thickets. The army marched as before, with the vain ostentation of military discipline, but totally unprepared for the dreadful scene that followed. “At length we entered a gloomy valley, surrounded on every side by the thickest shade, and rendered swampy by the overflowing of a rivulet. In this situation it was impossible to continue our march without disordering our ranks, and part of the army extended itself beyond the rest, while another part of the line involuntarily fell back behind. “In the moment while the officers were employed in rectifying the disorder of their men, a sudden noise of musketry was heard in front, which stretched about twenty of our men upon the field. The soldiers instinc-

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tively fired toward the part where they were attacked and instantly fell back in disorder. But it was equally in vain to retreat or to go forward, for it now appeared that we were completely hemmed in. On every side resounded the fatal peals of scattering fire, that thinned our ranks and extended our bravest comrades on the earth. Figure to yourself a shoal of fishes, inclosed within the net, that circle the fatal labyrinth in which they are involved; or rather conceive, what I have myself been a witness to, a herd of deer surrounded on every side by a band of active and unpitying hunters, who press and gall them on every side, and exterminate them at leisure in their flight; just such was the situation of our unfortunate countrymen. After a few unavailing discharges, which never annoyed a secret enemy that scattered death unseen, the ranks were broken, and all subordination lost. The ground was covered with gasping wretches, and stained with blood; the woods resounded with cries and groans, and fruitless attempts of our gallant officers to rally their men and check the progress of the enemy. By intervals was heard, more shrill, more dreadful than all the rest, the dismal yell of the victorious savages, who now, emboldened by their success, began to leave the covert and hew down those who fled with unrelenting cruelty. As to myself, the description which our colonel had given me of their method of attack, and the precautions to be used against it, rendered me, perhaps, less disturbed than I should otherwise have been. I remarked that those who stood and those who fled were exposed to equal danger. Those who kept their ranks, and endeavored to repel the enemy, exposed their persons to their fire, and were successively shot down, as happened to most of our unfortunate officers;

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THE END OF FRENCH DOMINION, 1759

while those who fled frequently rushed headlong upon the very death they sought to avoid. “Pierced to the heart at the sight of such carnage of my gallant comrades, I grew indifferent to life, and abandoned myself to despair, but it was a despair that neither impaired my exertions, nor robbed me of the faculties of my mind, ‘Imitate me,’ I cried, ‘my gallant countrymen, and we shall yet be safe!’ I then directly ran to the nearest tree, and sheltered myself behind its stem, convinced that this precaution alone could secure one from the incessant volleys which darted on every side. A small number of Highlanders followed my example, and thus secured we began to fire with more success at the enemy, who now exposed themselves with less reserve. This check seemed to astonish and confound them; and, had not the panic been so great, it is possible that this successful effort might have changed the fortune of the fight; for, in another quarter, the provincial troops that accompanied us behaved with the greatest bravery, and though deserted by the European forces, effected their own retreat.” THE END OF FRENCH DOMINION, 1759

A N D now comes the Seven Years’ War in Europe, in which England saw her opportunity to strike a finishing blow at France in America, while France had her hands full in Europe. It was now fully agreed in London that our continent could not remain half English and half French. The plain alternative was to conquer the French half; so armies were formed, maps studied, and campaigns planned to that end. Under incompetent or home-made generals, things

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steadily went from bad to worse, until the master-hand of William Pitt at length guided this momentous plan to complete success. What most concerns that result in the West came about in this way. In 1758 it was planned to make a combined assault upon Louisburg, Ticonderoga, and Duquesne, and so, as with one resistless blow, to break d o w n t h e whole French line from east to west.¹ Louisburg fell, but Ticonderoga stood fast, thanks to the valor of General Montcalm, its defender. Part of the army, which had fallen back from Ticonderoga, easily took GENERAL, THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM . Fort Frontenac, which closed the entrance to Lake Ontario to the French. They were now cut off from their western posts by the direct route, and, if not an operation of such dazzling brilliancy as that directed against Duquesne, the taking of Frontenac at least rendered that march

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wholly unnecessary. A modest provincial officer, named Bradstreet,² performed this notable exploit against the judgment of his superior, General Abercromby. For the attack on Duquesne, a strong force marched from Raystown (Bedford), by a new road,³ laid out to the north of Braddock’s and more direct. General Forbes, the commander, being sick, had to be carried along in a litter. The friendly Indians who had joined him were so indignant at seeing a warrior who could not walk presume to lead them that they were on the eve of deserting in a body. To prevent their doing so Conrad Weiser, the interpreter, made them this explanation: “Brothers,” said he, pointing to the general’s litter, “this man is so terrible in war that we are obliged to confine him, and let him write his orders; for if he were let loose upon the world he would deluge it with blood.” Colonel Bouquet, 4 a brave Swiss in the English service, held a command in this army. Colonel Washington, too, was going out again with a Virginia regiment, partly equipped like Indians. When within fifty miles of Duquesne, Colonel Bouquet, who had the advance, sent forward eight hundred men to 5 reconnoitre it. The officer in command got within a mile of the fort unopposed, when he seems to have lost his head. While parading his men as if to dare the garrison to come out, the gates were suddenly flung open, out poured a furious throng, leaping, screeching, and brandishing their weapons, and before the challenger could realize his peril he was being attacked in front, flank, and rear by twice or thrice his numbers. He tried to fight as Braddock fought, and like him was nearly cut to pieces. This unlooked-for reverse, of course, brought the main

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body to a sudden halt. When, finally, it did get up, Duquesne was found a heap of smouldering ruins. After setting it on fire, the garrison had taken to their boats, and escaped down the Ohio. Sooner or later, this must have come to pass without the loss of a man, or a

BOUQUET’S REDOUBT, PITTSBURG.

charge of powder. And thus it was that the original cause of the war had fallen without firing a shot. With the raising of the English flag the place was rechristened Fort Pitt, 6 by Forbes, in honor of the Great Commoner who had planned its downfall. The next year (1759) saw the last of French power in Canada. One crushing blow followed another. First Niagara was taken, then Ticonderoga and Crown Point,

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and lastly Quebec, that greatest stronghold of all, which the French were so confident could not be taken, fell before the victorious Wolfe. The western posts shared the

GENERAL JAMES WOLFE.

fate of the rest, a little later. From Fort Pitt, Bouquet went up the Alleghany to take possession of Presquisle, w h i c h t h e F r e n c h h a d s e t o n f i r e a n d a b a n d o n e d .7 From Presquisle Major Rogers crossed the lake to oc-

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cupy Detroit. And so the French flag came down, and the English went up over all the great Northwest. Millions had been spent, blood poured out like water, and all in vain. What it had taken so many years to rear since La Salle first threaded these unheeded solitudes was become the prize of France’s greatest rival at last. General Forbes was obliged to turn over the command 8 to General Stanwix, who continued the work of fortifying Pittsburg, and of pacifying the hostile tribes. The intrenchments were carried across from the Alleghany to the Monongahela. Eighteen pieces of artillery covered this approach; barracks were built to lodge a thousand soldiers. British dominion was at last firmly seated on the Ohio. Better still, no less than four thousand poor people, who had been driven away from the frontiers, now came back to their deserted clearings. ¹ THE STRATEGY looked first to securing the two main avenues into Canada. That done, it only remained to fight the decisive battle somewhere between Montreal and Quebec. Wolfe fought and won it at Quebec. When that happened, it was only a question of time when the western posts must fall of themselves. ² JOHN B RADSTREET served with Pepperell at Louisburg. His services during the next campaign, at Oswego, Ticonderoga, Frontenac, etc., were numerous and brilliant. He rose through successive grades to that of major-general in the British army, dying at New York in 1774. See Taking of Louisburg. ³ NEW MILITARY ROAD struck out from Bedford, across the main range of the Alleghanies, to Loyal Hannon Creek, a stream of the Alleghany. At this point, fifty-four miles from Pittsburg, Forbes built Fort Ligonier (Ligonier was a superannuated British general), both as a magazine and to keep his communications open. Instructed by Braddock’s

terrible lesson, Forbes followed the old Roman plan of advancing only so fast as he could secure his hold on the country, or at need his retreat. By and by these new posts served as rallying-points for the settlers. 4 C OLONEL H ENRY B OUQUET advocated the new route against the advice of Washington, who wanted to take Braddock’s road, to save delay. Yet there was certainly a feeling among Virginians opposed to making another road to the Ohio, not based upon military grounds— Virginia against Pennsylvania. 5 M AJOR G RANT , of the Highlanders, marched from Ligonier, reaching the neighborhood of the fort September 14th. Grant’s Hill, where the fight took place, was about a mile from the fort. Grant lost 273 men, killed, wounded, and taken, being himself among the captured. 6 P ITTSBURG was a name immediately taken up by the village that sprung up around the fort. This was either de-

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stroyed or abandoned when the fort was invested in 1763. “The town was laid out on Penn’s plan, in the year 1765, on the east bank of the Monongahela, about two hundred yards from Fort Duquesne.” —Morse’s Gazetteer, ed. 1797. 7 P RESQUISLE , Le Bœuf, and Venango fell immediately after Niagara, from

which they drew their supplies. All were burned, the garrisons retreating to Detroit. 8 G ENERAL F ORBES died the following spring, and was buried in Christ Church. During this campaign he had to be carried about in a litter, like Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy.

PONTIAC’S WAR, 1763

P EACE came in 1763, and with it Canada was ceded to England by France, and Florida by Spain. The cost in money had been enormous; in human life deplorable; and to the colonies the great triumph came mingled with a deep sense of war’s desolation. All thinking men saw that such a political upheaval as this would leave many ugly questions unsettled. In the first place, a vanquished population of foreigners was to be reconciled. As to this, the temper of the Canadians was sullen, though subdued. England was no less hated that her rule was silently assented to. Not so, however, with the French Indians. They, also, were sullen, but unsubdued. This feeling was artfully kept alive by the French traders,¹ who often secretly hinted that English rule would soon come to an end. Fickle as these savages were, habit had strongly attached them to the French. Many spoke the language. Some had been baptized. Others had intermarried with the traders or bush-rangers, so that there had come to be in most villages a distinct body of half-breeds, who might be described as uniting the worst qualities of both races. Not unfrequently these strangers had been adopted into the tribes, and sometimes even made chiefs. Such bonds as these, it is plain, could not be sundered in a day.

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When the Indians were told that they would shortly see themselves turned out of their hunting-grounds, they believed it. Savage though he was, the Indian could not fail to read the signs of the times in the history of his race. Within the memory of their old men his people had been pushed over the Endless Mountains² by the

SCALP-DANCE (AFTER CATLIN).

ever-advancing whites, who also drove back the game, so that every year the range grew less and less. Their wise men said that either the white men must be turned back, or the Indians all turn women and hoe corn for the Englishman. A hundred years before, Philip,³ the great Wampanoag, had fought for this very same idea on the shores of 6

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the Atlantic, and lost. Pontiac, 4 an Ojibway chief, now stood forth to do battle in the same cause. Briefly told, Pontiac’s war arose from jealousy of English rule. Detroit was occupied by an English garrison, November 29, 1760, along with other western posts. 5 Detroit was Pontiac’s home. From that moment he schemed and toiled to bring all the nations of the West into one great league against the English. To each he allotted its own particular work in the rising, reserving for himself the capture of Detroit, strongest of all the posts to be attacked. It was all done with such consummate secrecy that the English did not so much as dream that each and every one of them had his appointed executioner. But so it was. There had grown up around the fort a quite prosperous settlement, reckoned, in round numbers, at twentyfive hundred inhabitants, mostly Canadians. Some of them lived across the river, in what is now Windsor. The fort itself 6 was but a wall of stout pickets, twentyfive feet high, with log bastions at the corners for cannon, and a block-house at each gate. The pickets were loop-holed for musketry. There were, perhaps, a hundred soldiers in it, fit for duty, besides some forty traders or employees, who could be relied upon to fight in an emergency. Pontiac, of course, knew every nook and corner of the place, and had often counted every man in it. The pickets were too high to be scaled, and the gates too strong to be forced, and they were, moreover, always shut at nightfall. So Pontiac set his wits to work. His first move was to ask for a council, as a means of getting a chosen band of warriors into the fort, unsuspected. when he gave them the signal they were to fall

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on the garrison, throw open the gates, and let in their confederates from the outside. The council was readily granted them, but Gladwin, the commander, having been secretly warned, as some say by an Ojibway girl, whom he had treated kindly, prepared a surprise for the wouldbe assassins; so when they came stalking into the fort at Pontiac’s heels, each one tightly clutching the weapon hid under his blanket, they found all the soldiers drawn up under arms, every eye sternly watching them, and every officer’s hand laid on his sword-hilt. Pontiac instantly saw that he had been betrayed. “Why do I see so many of my father’s young men standing in the streets with their guns?” demanded the wily savage. “To keep the young men from idleness,” was the cold reply. Enraged by this failure, no sooner was he safe outside than Pontiac flung his warriors against the fort in successive assaults, but the pickets were stout, the garrison stood firm, and with the aid of one small vessel anchored off in the river, every assault was repulsed with ease. Meantime, on the appointed day, the tribes far and near had risen as one man. Their first victims were the English traders, nearly two hundred of whom were scattered among the Indian villages, and all but two or three murdered. Awake at last to the greatness of the danger, Gladwin at once sent off a vessel to Niagara for help. Then Pontiac resolved to starve the garrison out. So he pitched his camp two miles below the fort, where he could intercept vessels coming with supplies, without which Pontiac knew the place could not long hold out. Gladwin, however, was determined not to give up so

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long as a morsel of bread or a charge of powder was left. The way between Pontiac’s camp and the fort was scat-

PONTIAC’S FIRE-CANOES.

tered with the houses of the inhabitants, whom the chieftain compelled to feed his squalid army. Not a man stirred to help the imperilled garrison. Its one hope, therefore, lay in prompt relief from Niagara. But for

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this the crafty Pontiac had set his trap, as we have seen. By watching the river day and night some of the relief vessels were taken, while others reached the fort only after desperate fighting. Pontiac tried to desbroy these by sending fire-canoes down upon them, as they lay at anchor, at night, under the guns of the fort. Pontiac kept two secretaries, one to write his letters, and one to read those he received, though, Indian-like, he trusted neither. In payment for provisions he gave birch-bark receipts with his own totem, an otter, scrawled upon them. Quick to adopt the best methods of his adversaries, Pontiac was fast becoming a skilful general; yet, though he styled himself “King from the rising to the setting sun,” events were hastening his downfall, none the less. Meantime, the war was being carried to the gates of every one of the lonely frontier posts from Niagara to the Maumee. One by one they were being ravaged by fire and slaughter. In July—the siege had begun early in May—Captain Dalzell came down in a vessel from Niagara to reinforce Detroit. On his way he stopped at Sandusky, meaning to surprise the old Indian village there, but finding this abandoned, he went his way up the lake. The English garrison had been surprised in June, and all slaughtered, except Lieutenant Pauley, the officer in command, who was first carried off to an Ottawa village, and then given the choice between marrying a squaw, or being put to death. He was not put to death. Presquisle fell at about the same time, after making a heroic defence. Being too few to defend every part of the fort at once, the garrison shut themselves up in the block-house. The assailants tried to burn it over their

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heads, by shooting lighted arrows into the roof. Fifty times it was on fire and as often put out by volunteers, at the risk of being shot down by the light of the flames. Still the determined little band fought on unflinchingly. At length their supply of water gave out. Even then they did not falter. While some manned the loop-holes, the rest fell to digging a well inside the block-house, which was finished in a day. All was, however, in vain, as the enemy had succeeded in mining the block-house, and now threatened to blow it up if the garrison did not surrender. This they did under the promise of being sent safe to Pittsburg, instead of which they were treacherously marched off to Detroit. Two soldiers, who escaped, brought the bad news to Pittsburg, made worse by the report that Le Bœuf and Venango 7 had also fallen. That line being completely gone, the savages immediately poured through the gap upon the defenceless border. Michilimackinac fell easily. It was a stockade defended by only thirty soldiers. To all appearance the neighboring tribes were friendly. The Ojibways, however, had laid a clever plan to take the fort and massacre the garrison. They set the king’s birthday for their attempt, knowing it would be a holiday, and a less strict guard kept. The plan worked to a charm. Those soldiers who were off duty went outside the fort to see a game of lacrosse played between some Sacs and Ojibways, who showed great skill at this favorite pastime of theirs. A crowd of Indians stood around looking on. All this time the fort gate stood open. By degrees the players came nearer and nearer. Suddenly the ball went bounding over the stockade into the fort. Players and lookers-on rushed in after it through the open gate. Then only did the fiendish purpose of the game become

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apparent. Once inside, blankets were cast aside, tomahawks drawn, whoops and yells sounded the fearful signal, and the massacre began. One by one the unarmed soldiers fell beneath the blows of their infuriated pursuers. Those who hid themselves were soon dragged forth from their hidingplaces, to be despatched without mercy. Slaughter raged unchecked until the fort was a shambles. Alexander H e n r y , 8 an eye-witness, says that the Canadians stood

OLD BARRACKS, FREDERICK, MD.

silently by, through it all, neither proffering aid to the victims, nor receiving any hurt from the savages. Most remote of all the western posts, Green Bay was also taken. Thus, with the exception of Pittsburg and Detroit, every vestige of military power had been swept away, as by the passing of a whirlwind; and these two key-points could only let the storm pass over them. The Pennsylvania border was now suddenly overrun by numerous savage war-parties, who slew old and

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young, set fire to the houses, and threw the mangled remains into the flames. Every day brought its dreadful record of fire and slaughter. Each day the marauders grew bolder. People were butchered at the very gates of Ligonier, then as far down as Bedford and Carlisle, until terror had depopulated all the out-settlements, and turned the new clearings back into a solitude again. Meantime, news of the uprising had reached the seaboard and Colonel Bouquet, with five hundred men, was on his way to Fort Pitt. His march called back the scattered war-parties from their work of destruction, to stop him if they could. In vain they hung upon his flanks. His vigilance baffled all their plans. Thus, as Bouquet advanced the savages fell back, first from around Bedford, then from before Ligonier; gathering strength, however, as they went, for one determined effort to stop him, when once he should be hopelessly entangled in the woods. It came at a place called Bushy Run, where the Indians made one of their most furious onsets. With the English it was now do or die; for if defeated here they were in danger of being cut off to a man. So, though greatly outnumbered, they fought for two days with desperate bravery, before victory declared for either side. The defeated savages then disappeared. This victory had been won only with the loss of one hundred and twentythree officers and men, but it cleared the way to Fort Pitt, besides putting an end to the war in this quarter. At Detroit Dalzell’s reinforcement emboldened the garrison to make a night sally upon Pontiac’s camp, hoping thereby to raise the siege. It was a dismal failure. Forewarned of what was intended, the Indians drove the assailants back to the fort with severe loss.9

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The siege had now dragged along from early May well into September, and the hunting season was at hand. Thus quietly to sit down before a place, for months together, was something unheard of in Indian warfare. Signs of a breaking up began to show themselves in Pontiac’s camp. Those of his followers who had come there from long distances began to desert him in large and small bodies. Seeing his army thus daily dissolving, Pontiac himself withdrew to the Maumee, after giving out that he would renew the war in the spring. The next year (1764) Colonel Bouquet marched from Fort Pitt to the Sandusky Plains with one force, while Colonel Bradstreet went up the lakes with another. The object of these expeditions was to carry the war into the enemy’s country, redeem the captives taken the previous summer, and make the savages feel the power they had provoked. At Presquisle Bradstreet compelled the Delawares, Shawnees, and other Indians to make peace. Pontiac’s war left the Indians of the West worse humbled than they had been before. Stung by defeat, the haughty chief quitted his old haunts for an asylum among the Illinois. Here he was treacherously slain at Cahokia, in 1769, by an Indian who had been bribed to do the deed. Like Philip, the great Wampanoag, whom he resembled, Pontiac died by the hand of one of his own race. That generation saw only the horrors he caused; ours sees the grandeur of the champion even in the savage. ¹ FRENCH TRADERS gave out that they would soon be in possession of the country again. ² ENDLESS M OUNTAINS , early Indian name for the Alleghanies, still to be read on old maps. ³ PHILIP’S W AR , a striking episode in the history of New England, broke out

in 1675. See Hubbard’s and Mather’s contemporary histories of this war. 4 P O N T I A C ’ s CO N S P I R A C Y has been treated of at length by Parkman and others. 5 W ESTERN POSTS. There were ten of these: viz., Sandusky, Presquisle, Le Bœuf, Venango, Duquesne, on the Ohio

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line; Detroit, Michilimackinac, and St. Joseph, on the lakes; Fort Miami, on the Maumee, where Fort Wayne, Ind., now stands, and Ouatenon, on the Wabash, near Lafayette, Ind. 6 FORT DETROIT had originally inclosed all there was of the settlement, military and civil, so that there were many houses inside the walls, as well as outside. 7 A T L E B ŒUF the garrison escaped by cutting a hole through the block-

house, at the back, while the Indians, after setting it on fire, kept shooting into it from the front. About half the men got to Fort Pitt. The rest starved by the way. Venango was easily taken, and all the garrison massacred. 8 A LEXANDER H ENRY’ S Travels in New York and the Indian Territories. New York, 1809. 9 Dalzell himself was killed in this sortie, the failure of which greatly discouraged the garrison.

SECOND EPOCH

THE ADVANCE INTO THE WEST “The world could ill spare one of the pioneers.”—P RESIDENT ELIOT .

THE HUNTERS OF KENTUCKY¹ “And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they”

TH E

great prize for which this great war had been fought was now ours, and it was not ours. True, the French had been got rid of, but there were the Indians still. Would they submit to see the whites take up lands in the Ohio valley or not? Fifty years of strife, millions spent, thousand of lives sacrificed, were the answer to this question. No people ever fought with greater determination, or made the victory more costly to their conquerors. Who, then, would first brave the perils of this disputed ground for the sake of new homes? Up to this time we have seen travel following closely the lines of Indian populations. In other words, it has been governed by the laws of trade. The scene now suddenly shifts to the southern bank of the Ohio, where there were almost no Indians, and therefore very little trade—that is, resident Indians, for of roving Indians there were always plenty in the hunting season. One squalid Shawnee village is indeed found on the Ohio, opposite the Scioto. Some discover a second on the Kentucky. But these roving people were only tenants at will²—tributaries of the powerful Iroquois, fear of whom alone kept them from strengthening themselves in Kentucky. Indeed, when their masters called them to account for being there at all, they very humbly explained that, when going down the Ohio many years be-

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fore, in quest of new homes, they had been stopped at the Scioto by order of the Iroquois, “who,” said they, “shook us by the hair of our heads, and fixed us there, charging us to live in peace with the English.” These dreaded Iroquois once claimed all as far down as the mouth of the Tennessee, but had given up their title to the English (1768). At best it was a flimsy one, especially as the Iroquois were unable to give peaceable possession³ with it. The English title, however, first as part of Virginia, next as reconquered territory, and lastly as vacant land, seemed unusually good and sufficient in this case. But the tribes of the great Ohio valley, north and south, sternly warned off all intruders. From an unknown time they had hunted the buffalo among the rich bottoms and savannas of Kentucky, and this right, confirmed by long custom, they would not now give up. Being old enemies, when they met they fought together, so that Kentucky was perhaps as often their battleground as hunting-ground. Very little more is known of it. These deadly combats, far from their own villages, are supposed to have given Kentucky its forbidding name of the “Dark and Bloody Ground.” Yet, however they may have fought together, they resisted, as one man, the coming in of the whites, as they foresaw that their hunting-grounds would be lost to them. So, for many a long, weary year, Kentucky kept its name of dread undiminished. And with this threatening cloud hanging over it, like another Promised Land, into which men may look, but not enter, it lay in all its peerless beauty a splendid waste. There is nothing commonplace about the history of Kentucky. It has, to a charm, the picturesque qualities

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of personal adventure. The story is therefore deeply interesting, even to its smallest details. That stray traders may have gone into Kentucky between 1730 and 1750 as easily as into Ohio or Tennessee, is more than probable. But that is all that can be said of men who have left no “Footprints

on

the

sands

of

time.”

Thomas Walker, 4 of Albemarle County, Virginia, was the first white man to visit Kentucky (1750) with a broader purpose. We may call him an intelligent explorer, since a more or less thorough examination of the country seems to have been his first business. On one of the branches of the Cumberland a settlement, even, is laid down by his name on a map of the time. He gave their present name to the Cumberland River 5 and Mountains, and also to the Big Sandy; 6 so that of him we not only do find definite traces, but find them quickly followed up. Then again, we have seen Christopher Gist going into Kentucky the very next year (1751), for the purpose of locating lands for the Ohio Company. We can well imagine what accounts he must have carried back to his home on the Yadkin. In Virginia capitalists were scheming; in North Carolina backwoodsmen talking. But the French War soon sternly called every man to the defence of his own fireside before he could indulge in dreams of adventure. Still, these things were by no means forgotten. After the war some roving hunters struck out across the mountains again, even pushing on into the tremendous gorges of Cumberland Gap, and so discovering that great gateway, through which the first emigration fought its way into Kentucky. These men were known in the

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settlements as “Long Hunters,” from their being out a whole season, trapping and hunting. They, and others like them, were the pioneers of Kentucky. To get permanent settlers into Kentucky implied a long leap ahead of anything like a regulated moving up of population from the East. That army never retreated.

CUMBERLAND GAP.

But for such a long leap, almost in the dark, as one might say, there must always be a secure foothold, as well as a safe landing. These were found in the new settlements now springing up along the Holston, in East Tennessee. Few and feeble as they were, they proved the prop and stay of Kentucky, in her weakest hour. By this route John Finley made his way to the Ken-

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tucky River in 1767. His return was, doubtless, a firebrand in every lowly cabin along the Yadkin; for in May, 1769, six stout woodsmen, of whom Finley was one, set out on a hunting and prospecting tour to Kentucky. These six men belonged to a class formed to battle with the wilderness. As a class they became extinct with it. Nothing of the graces of civilized life they knew; but with hardship and danger they were familiar from the cradle. These had made robust men of them— men of iron thews and sinews. They lived mostly by hunting, as the Indians did, and like them were more deeply read in nature’s books than man’s. A sturdy honesty distinDANIEL BOONE. guished one and all. Every man’s door was unbarred to admit the stranger; every one stood ready to lend his neighbor a helping hand. Weak outposts of advancing civilization, insensibly they fell into more or less barbarous ways. The best hunter was the most useful citizen; the best wife, she who could hoe as well as spin. Though each man tilled his little patch of ground, the drudgery of the farm mostly fell to the women and boys. It is here we discover the backwoodsman’s distinguishing trait. Other 7

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frontier folk were farmers first of all; he was more hunter than farmer. And here, again, he resembled the Indian. The term “backwoodsman” is therefore highly descriptive. Nothing indeed could be better. Daniel Boone,7 the leader of this little band, has passed into history as the representative backwoodsman. These hunters wore garments suited to rough work and weather, partly borrowed from the Indians, partly their own invention, but certainly the one distinctive American costume ever worn by our people. It was no less picturesque than appropriate. Each man wore on his head a raccoonskin cap, of home make, with the animal’s bushy tail dangling down over the left ear, which gave the wearer a very rakish look indeed. His outer garment, in all weather, was a fringed deerskin huntingfrock, long in the skirts, open in front, and gathered in at the waist by a broad leathern belt. His legs were protected by fringed deerskin leggings, and his feet by moccasins. This dress could not be easily torn by stiff briars, like woollens, or so soon worn out with use. It was almost as tough as the man himself, and when the owner was out on the hunting-path it was never taken off. The equipments were equally rude, equally serviceable. A well-filled powder-horn hung lightly across the shoulder, where the hunter could readily grasp it, quickly jerk out the wooden stopper with his teeth, and measure out the proper charge to a kernel, or simply pour the priming into the pan of his long, heavy, flint-lock rifle, as it lay in the hollow of his left arm, with his left hand tightly grasping the small of the breech. If life or death hung on the rapidity of his motions, by letting the breech

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fall heavily to the ground the piece might be risked to prime itself. When firing from behind a tree, the hunter always turned his back to it to load. In addition to these white man’s weapons, every hunter carried an Indian’s tomahawk, at his right side, very useful for clearing his way through tangled thickets or blazing a path through the wilderness of trees as he went, as well as for dealing deadly blows in single combat. At the left side, he carried a long, heavy, keen-edged hunting-knife, so formidable in the hands of an athletic man, skilled in its use, that from the first the Kentuckians were known to the Indians as the Long Knives. But the rifle was always his favorite weapon. Accustomed from boyhood to the use of it, the men grew up to be the best marksmen in the world. A British officer has related that, at their shooting-matches, he had frequently seen one man hold out a board for the others to fire at, not only in his hand, but between his knees. To throw away a charge of powder was more than a fault; it was disgrace. Dr. Doddridge has left a sketch of these hunters as graphic as it is brief. “I have often seen them,” he says, “get up early in the morning, when the autumn leaves had fallen, and frosts killed the undergrowth, walk hastily out, look anxiously to the woods, and snuff the autumnal winds with the highest rapture; then return into the house, and cast a quick and attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a couple of buck’s horns, or little forks. The hunting-dog, understanding his master’s intentions, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment in his power express his readiness to accompany him to the woods. A day was soon appointed for the march to the camping-place.

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Two or three horses, furnished with pack-saddles, were loaded with flour, Indian meal, blankets, and everything else requisite for the hunter’s use.” These men spoke of the hardships they had faced with a shrug; dangers they laughed at. We might almost say that the spirit of adventure was born in them, and nursed with their mothers’ milk. The first buffalo met with furnished them bed and bedding, as well as meat. Bestriding the huge carcass in triumph, out came the sharp hunting-knife, and off was flayed the shaggy hide. A few choice cuts were quickly removed; flint and steel struck a fire; a sharpened stick held the collops to the blaze till done to the hunter’s turn, when fingers took the place of knives and forks, until the cravings PICTURED ROCK. of hunger were fully satisfied. Then, wrapped up in his robe, stretched out with his feet to the fire, no king in his palace slept more soundly, or awoke feeling himself half so truly a monarch as this simple backwoodsman did. Such a man was Daniel Boone. And this had been his life. Cast upon nature for a livelihood, he and his rude comrades were, in habits, weapons, dress, a curious blending of white and savage, of civilized and uncivilized man. In some respects, the men who, for the most part, make the early history of Kentucky, may be said to

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have been instruments for civilization, in spite of themselves. Boone was thirty-four when he started off on his long journey. His party entered Kentucky at the southeast corner, reaching the upper waters of the Kentucky in June. From a rocky height here they looked down upon a scene too sublime for words, and here they resolved to pitch their first camp. They were soon discovered. Boone, with one companion, having been surprised and taken, while absent hunting, the rest broke up their camp in haste, and made all speed back to the settlements. Fortunately the captives succeeded in making their escape, only to find themselves deserted by their panic-stricken companions. Boone’s resolute character is now well shown in the determination to stay where he was, Indians or no Indians. And his was the governing will. Here, then, they passed the long, dreary winter unmolested and uneventfully until January, when one day two men were discovered cautiously approaching the camp. Boone sharply challenged them: “Halloa! strangers, who are you?” “White men and friends,” was the swift answer. One of these wayfarers proved to be Boone’s own brother, who had come to seek him, as well as to follow up the work of exploration, so well begun. Before spring came only the two Boones were left alive. One man had been shot and scalped, the other lost in the woods. The younger brother then went back to the Yadkin for supplies, leaving Daniel all alone in Kentucky. This was on May 1st. By the last of July the younger Boone, who seems to have been of the same intrepid make as his brother, rode into the old camp on one horse, leading another.

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The two men then set about exploring the country between the Kentucky and the Cumberland, with a method which leads us to think they were doing so, not alone for their own gratification, but as the chosen agents for some far more sagacious persons in the settlements. This we must believe was really the case. When spring came round again (1771), the explorers started for home, with the spoils of the hunt strapped on the backs of their horses. It was learned from these explorations that the central, or what is since known as the Blue Grass, country was by far the best timbered and most fertile part of Kentucky. For twenty years, therefore, Kentucky had been more or less visited. Boone had doubtless carried back much useful information about the country which men eagerly seized upon. More serious efforts followed, at once, though their order was now reversed, for Virginia only sent out some surveyors, while in North Carolina a colonizing company was formed. This Transylvania Company, as it was called, after buying up nearly half of Kentucky, and all the best of it, from the Cherokees, started a party of settlers in September, 1773, and the two Boones and their families went back with them. The history of this short-lived land company will be given in another chapter. It is mentioned now to show how early organized effort was directed to Kentucky, and how easy it was to start a land boom, even at that early day, in a comparatively newly settled region. Boone led this little colony toward Cumberland Gap over his old trail. All were well armed, and all well mounted, women as well as men. In advance rode the

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watchful scouts, each man’s trusty rifle lying across his saddle-bow ready for instant use. Sharply the dark lines, traced through the primitive forest by the swift mountain streams, were scanned for any sign of smoke, and even the circling flight of ravenous buzzards above the treetops instantly drew eager eyes to the spot, to which the offal of buffalo or deer had attracted these winged scavengers of the wilderness. Then followed a hasty council, a halt, until it was decided safe to move on. Then, after tightening their saddle-girths, and once more looking to the primings of their rifles, these sun-burned men, of iron sinews, rode on toward the suspected spot, alert and silent. The long train of sure-footed pack-horses, shaggy, agile, patient little beasts, progenitors of the celebrated Kentucky stock, jogged on behind, and behind these again, the lumbering herd of milch cows, young cattle, and swine was being driven along by some of the younger men and boys. In this manner, the little cavalcade wound slowly in and out of the rocky gorges of the Cumberland Mountains, keeping a sharp look-out for any sign of lurking redskins. This was the way of emigration one hundred years ago. So large a body, strung out over several miles, could not fail to betray its own presence to the keen-eyed, quickwitted, bloodthirsty savages. Their opportunity came while the moving caravan was thus stretched out among the mountains. The herd having lagged some miles in the rear, the eager redskins fell furiously upon that, and scattered it in the woods. Six of the cattle-guard were killed outright; the seventh made his escape, though sorely wounded. Of course, the wily savages well knew that this mode

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of attack would be sure to turn the main body back. When they had buried the dead, one of whom was Boone’s oldest son, the whole party sadly retraced its steps to the Clinch River. This was the sort of school in which the pioneers of Kentucky were trained. Nevertheless, by the next June (1774), James Harrod 8 had come down the Ohio as far as the Falls, had gone up Salt River to its head, and finding there a situation to his liking, had hastily put up a log-cabin—the very first civilized habitation in Kentucky, as distinguished from hunters’ camps. The perilous entrance, by the way of Cumberland Gap, had now become a fixed fact. And, already, the Falls 9 pointed out the destined landing-place for settlers coming down the Ohio—sure forerunner of the coming metropolis. It is true that, as yet, James Harrod’s poor lo g-cabin was all that Kentucky could boast, and even he had hardly got a roof over his head before he was called away to defend it. Let us follow him, for the hour had now struck, when it was to be decided whether Kentucky should be held or not. ¹ KENTUCKY is said to be an Iroquois word, meaning “hunting grounds.” Cuttawa, the Cherokee name for the Kentucky River, is said to signify “The Great Wilderness.” These are, however, by no means the only definitions. ² “F OR THE NORTH SIDE . which they still occupy, is more than they have any title to, having often been moved from place to place by the SIX Nations, and never having any right of soil there.” . . “The Shawnees, to my knowledge, grasped at lands on both sides of the Ohio.”—Sir Wm. Johnson, D o c . Hist . N. Y., i., 990, 991, 992. ³ B Y T H E T R E A T Y of Fort Stanwix. For the boundary, see D OC . Hist. of N.

Y., with map, i., 587. Franklin claimed that Virginia had no right of soil in Kentucky till this treaty was made—that her western boundary was the Alleghanies. 4 D R . THOMAS W ALKER was exploring the Holston valley as early as 1748. He left a MS. journal of his Kentucky tour. See also Dinwiddie Papers i., 412. Walker’s settlement is put down on Mitchell’s Map of 1755. It could hardly have been more than a camp. This expedition of Walker’s comes so close after the organization of the Ohio Company as to suggest having been prompted by it. 5 T HE C UMBERLAND was previously known as the Shawnee River, as the Ten-

WHEELING, 1770 nessee had been as the Cherokee; named for the second son of George II. 6 B IG S ANDY ; Indian name Chatterawah. 7 D ANIEL B OONE was born in Pennsylvania, in 1735, whence his English parents migrated to the Yadkin settlements about 1754; Boone went from Kentucky to Missouri, 1794, where he died, 1820. See Filson’s account of him; John M. Peck’s Life of Boone; The Making of the Great West, 211, note A beech tree on which Daniel Boone carved his name in rude letters 133 years ago, was a unique part of Tennessee’s contribution

105

to the World’s Fair of 1894. The tree was long a landmark near Jonesboro’, Tenn. 8 J A M E S H A R R O D was a Virginian. Like Boone, he lived to see Kentucky a populous State, in which, unlike Boone, he became a contented and prosperous citizen. 9 F ALLS OF THE O HIO . Dr. John Conolly, sometime commandant at Fort Pitt, hired Thomas Bullitt, a Virginia surveyor, to lay out for him four hundred thousand acres at the falls. A patent issued December, 1773, but war put a stop to settlement there at this time.

WHEELING, 1770

N EARLY coeval with these events was the coming of a man, of the same intrepid stamp as the Boones, to build his solitary cabin on the site of Wheeling. This was Ebenezer Zane, one of three brothers who first visited this spot in the year 1769, and came back to settle permanently the next year.¹ The Zanes are said to have removed here from the south branch of the Potomac, near Moorfield, though Major Denny asserts that Ebenezer was brought up among the Wyandots.² However that may be, Zane had chosen one of the strategic points of the Ohio Valley, though this fact could hardly have been known to him at the time. All he probably cared to know was that he had found an advantageous spot for trading with the interior of Ohio. It was where the crowding hills left scant room for a town site, but when the Ohio was low it was practically the head of navigation, even for flat or keel boats. Of course, its further advantage as a point of departure for the East had not then been discovered, or that other advantage it

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presently assumed as a stopping-place for emigrants descending the river from above. Dunmore’s campaign, to be presently related, led to the erection of a block-house at this point, first called Fort Fincastle, and later Fort Henry, in honor of the Revolutionary patriot, Patrick Henry.³ ¹ N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., vol. xiv., p. 236. ² See Denny’s Journal, in Memoirs Hist. Soc. of Penna., vol. vii.

³ See Potter’s Am. Monthly, vol. iv., 110.

THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT¹ (October 10, 1774)

A NGRY at seeing the whites intrenched in their huntinggrounds, the Ohio Indians made war against them. The Ohio being the great natural highway to Kentucky, their idea was to make it so dangerous that the tide of travel would be turned backward. To effect this, they began waylaying, robbing, and even killing travellers. In fact, no one could pass up or down without running the gauntlet of the Shawnee villages at the Scioto. These injuries soon set the whole frontier in a blaze. These things being laid before him, Governor Lord Dunmore determined to chastise the offenders, and throw open the Ohio. To this end he called out the colony militia to meet at the mouth of the Great Kanawha.² In obedience to this call, fifteen hundred men assembled above Wheeling, under Dunmore, while a thousand more, under General Andrew Lewis, encamped at the place of rendezvous itself. Here Lewis received an order changing the point of junction to the vicinity of the towns on the Scioto.

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Dunmore moved down the river to the Hockhocking, where he built Fort Gower, thence in the direction of the Shawnee towns. While the English forces were thus separated, and before Lewis had left the Kanawha, a thousand warriors, led by Cornstalk, a renowned Shawnee chief, fell upon

AN OHIO RIVER FLAT-BOAT.

him with all the fury that a firm resolution to exterminate the whites could inspire. All day the battle raged doubtfully. During the thick of it Cornstalk’s voice was often heard shouting to his braves, “Be strong, be strong!” During the night the Indians retreated. Both sides lost heavily. Though unsuccessful, it certainly was a bold stroke, planned with consummate skill, and executed with

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that celerity and dash which made the Indians so terrible to their foes. If they had defeated Lewis, the detachment north of the Ohio would probably have had the combined tribes, far and near, fall upon them. Lewis, being reinforced, marched to join Dunmore, as first ordered. Cowed by defeat, the hostile Indians, except the Mingoes, hastened to make peace. The answer of Logan,³ a Mingo chief, when urged to lay down his arms, has long been pointed to as a specimen of savage eloquence, unexcelled by anything of the kind in history. Nothing could be more pathetic than the simple words with which he concludes the recital of his wrongs: “Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.” Having, as he supposed, made the Ohio safe to travel, Dunmore returned to Virginia in triumph, leaving small garrisons at the Kanawha, and at Fort Fincastle, now Wheeling, to guard the river. It was indeed time for Dunmore to hasten home; for echoes of the approaching conflict with England had reached even these far frontiers. While halting at Fort Gower on their homeward march, the troops declared, on November 5th, that, “as the love of liberty and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defence of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges.” ¹ PT. PLEASANT , W. Va., occupies the site of the battle-ground. ² GREAT KANAWHA. This river was also a back route to the settlements on the Upper James and Yadkin. The early spelling is almost always Kanhawa. ³ LOGAN (Tah-gah-jute) took his English name from Secretary James Logan, of Pennsylvania. Said to be a Cayuga, or, in backwoods vernacular, a Mingo, that

being the name given to seceders from the Iroquois villages, who had followed the streams leading to the Ohio. In the spring of 1774 all of Logan’s family were wickedly murdered by the whites in revenge for other injuries. This turned Logan from a friend to an enemy. He would not attend the treaty, but sent Lord Dunmore the speech which follows.

LOGAN’S SPEECH

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LOGAN’S SPEECH¹

“I APPEAL to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not? During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, ‘Logan is the friend of the white men.’ I had even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.” ¹ LOGAN ’S S PEECH gained quick currency, first appearing in the Virginia Gazette of February 4, 1775. It was also published in the same month in New York, with some variations; and still later by Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia. He said, he believed he learned

it at Lord Dunmore’s, in Williamsburg. Since then, where is the American schoolboy who has not spoken it? Cresap has been warmly defended against Logan’s charge. See Potter’s Monthly, February, 1875, etc.

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A KENTUCKY STATION

T HE resort to arms being decided, settlement was resumed. By the next spring, Boone, who had just been working a road from the Kentucky to the Holston, for the land company, began building for it (April 1, 1775), on the south side of the Kentucky, the little quadrangle of log-cabins called after him Boonesborough. In his own story, Boone says that his wife and daughters were the first white women who had ever stood on the banks of the Kentucky River. This station was completed by June 1. Next, Benjamin Logan,¹ a soldier of the French War, followed close with his station of St. Asaphs,² near the present town of Stanford. Harrod’s we have already mentioned. Here we see the first foundations of Kentucky. Of this trio of settlements Boonesborough was the capital and stronghold. Harrod and Boone were barely within supporting distance of each other, but Harrod and Logan were nearer. It was, indeed, a bold thing thus to erect three such dangerous outposts, where they could have no hope save in themselves. Let us, then, look at their means of defence. Boone had inclosed a plot of ground two hundred and fifty feet long, by one hundred and twenty-five broad in this way: At each corner, a log-house, two stories high, was built so as to project beyond the line, and so to flank it. Between these, other log-cabins formed the sides, in part, the rest being made up of pickets, twice a man’s height, a foot thick, sharpened at the top, and squared so as to fit closely together. These were set in a trench, first dug to receive them, and then filled

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up. At every few steps the pickets were loop-holed. So, also, were the cabins, from which the defenders could rake the outside of the stockade, in case of an assault. Thick slabs covered the roof, and a pair of folding gates, similar to great barn-doors, let the people in or out. This station stood at about sixty yards from the Kentucky River. As long as cannon could not be brought to bear against it, the inmates had little to fear, except

POSITIONS OF KENTUCKY STATIONS.

from hunger or fire. Over and over again did these rude wooden castles prove the salvation of Kentucky, for though often hard pressed, they were seldom taken. In them we see the cradle of a robust people. And the rough clearing, that dreary stretch of grisly stumps hewed out of the forest around the station. Here men might be seen planting or hoeing, under cover of the station and its rifles. On the skirt, a short rifle-shot off stood the forest—dark, silent, threatening.

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This was the dead-line, where lurked the savage. And now and then there went forth into the forest those who never came back. ¹ BENJAMIN L OGAN , born in Pennsylvania, subsequently removed to Augusta County, Va., later to the Holston. His father was of Irish birth.

² St. Asaphs, originally a bishopric of North Wales.

THE RESCUE OF THE CHILDREN

L IFE at the stations, during the early stages of settlement, comes back to us with startling distinctness in some such tale as the following: On July 14, 1776, Betsy Callaway, her sister Frances, and Jemima, a daughter of Daniel Boone, the two last being only about fourteen years old, carelessly crossed the river opposite to Boonesborough, in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. The trees and shrubs, on the opposite bank, formed a thicket that came down to the water’s edge. Unconscious of danger, the girls were playing and splashing the water with their paddles, until the canoe had drifted quite near the shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed, one of whom crept down the bank as noiselessly and stealthily as a serpent, until he could reach the rope at the bow, which he quickly seized and turned the canoe up-stream, away from the station. The loud shrieks of the captured girls were heard there, but too late for their rescue. One of the rescuing party tells the rest of the story. “Next morning by daylight we were on the track, but found they had totally prevented our following them, by walking some distance apart through the thickest canes they could find. We observed their course, and on

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which side we had left their sign, and travelled upwards of thirty miles. We imagined that they would be less cautious, and made a turn to cross their trace, and had gone but a few miles before we found their tracks in a buffalo path. We pursued, and, after going ten miles farther, overtook them just as they were kindling a fire. Our study had been more to get the prisoners, without giving the Indians time to murder them after they discovered us, than to kill them. “We discovered each other nearly at the same time. Four of us fired, and all rushed upon them, which prevented their carrying away anything except one shotgun, without ammunition. Mr. Boone and myself had a pretty fair shoot, just as they began to move off. I am well convinced that I shot one through, and the one he shot dropped his gun; mine had none. The place was very thick with canes, and being so much elated on recovering the three little broken-hearted girls, prevented our making further search. We sent them off without their moccasins, and not one of them with so much as a knife or a tomahawk.”¹ ¹ Floyd’s narrative: Butler’s Kentucky, 32, 33.

THREE GREAT LAND SCHEMES

I T must not be supposed that, during all this time, the Ohio Valley was left to the hap-hazard efforts of a few errant backwoodsmen, alike eager to get away from civilization and the tax-gatherer. We have seen that the attempt of the Ohio Company to get control there had brought on war with France. The war killed that project. After the war, a new 8

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scheme was brought forward, having the same object in view. Sir William Johnson, of New York, then Indian agent, Governor Franklin, of Pennsylvania, and others were interested in it. Benjamin Franklin was their agent in London. These persons formed a company, with Thomas Walpole, a London banker, at its head, from whom the solicited tract took the name of Walpole’s Grant.¹ There were violent disputes in the cabinet over this grant, but it finally passed the board in 1772, more through secret influence than upon its merits. This project was killed by the Revolution. The most interesting fact brought out by the discussion was Franklin’s statement that five thousand families were then settled over the Alleghanies.² They were expected to form the body of the proposed colony on the Ohio, and did, in fact, largely become the settlers of Kentucky. If Franklin’s statement were true, there could hardly be found, we think, a more striking example of the migratory tendencies of the American people. This vanguard was only waiting for the signal, to move down into the Ohio Valley. A third project more nearly concerns the founding of Kentucky, to which, indeed, the others looked, but did not attain. This was known as Henderson’s Purchase, from the leading spirit in it, later as the Colony of Transylvania.³ The purchase included lands lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland, and was made of the Cherokees, as the presumed owners, thus wholly ignoring the claims of Virginia, as Walpole’s Grant had done before it. Richard Henderson 4 set up his land office at Boones-

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borough. He then called upon the four infant stations to send delegates there to frame a code of laws for the colony, all four 5 being within its limits. They met on May 23d, and enacted such laws as their lawless condition required. Leases of land were also made at this time, by Henderson, under the colony title. Virginia, however, disowned these titles; so did North

Carolina the original purchase from the Cherokees. Alarmed for their holdings, the Kentuckians now prayed Virginia to take them under her protection. The company did the same thing to the Continental Congress. James Hogg, their deputy, was told that, as his grant lay within the Virginia charter, he must settle it with the Virginians. Through the influence of Patrick Henry

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the colony was denied recognition, and, abandoned by everybody, it soon ceased to exist.6 This history is notable as the last attempt to set up a proprietary government in the colonies. It is notable, again, for its evidence of the law-abiding instinct in men thus loosely thrown together. It shows us that this isolated little community, which made laws rifle in hand, was sound at the core. The instinct of self-preservation was first obeyed, then that of order, by an appeal to the popular voice. ¹ WALPOLE ’S G RANT covered nearly all of what is now Kentucky, between the Great Kanawha and Scioto. The professed object was planting a colony, in a spot advantageous to Great Britain. The associates, however, expected great profits from their land sales to colonists. Franklin urged, what actually happened later, that these colonists “could be poured down the Mississippi upon the lower country,” in case of war. Sir Wm. Johnson was to have been governor. ² “From 1765 to 1768, the king’s subjects removed in great numbers from Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, over the mountains.” A new wagon-road reduced the distance between Fort Cum berland and the Redstone of the Monongahela from seventy to forty miles. Settlers flocked thither regardless of the

Treaty of Paris (1763), by which the bounds between the settlements and the Indian hunting-grounds were fixed. It was attempted to remove them, without avail, and Redstone (since Brownsville) thereafter became a point of departure for Kentucky. ³ T R A N S Y L V A N I A is the name of an Austrian province; possibly suggested here by Pennsylvania. 4 R ICHARD H ENDERSON had been one of the associate judges of North Carolina; he was a man of marked ability. His name is preserved in the county and town of Henderson, Ky. See note 6. 5 B OILING S PRING had added a fourth station. 6 H ENDERSON ’S COMPANY subsequently received a grant of two hundred thousand acres between Green River and the Ohio.

A BRAVE DEED OF ARMS

T H E tide of immigration was now setting more and more strongly into Kentucky. That this should be so, at a time when war with the mother-country was just beginning, is no less strange than true. Thus it chanced that one party of newcomers were en-

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camped on the Elkhorn, when word reached them that the colonists had fought, and won, their first battle at Lexington.¹ That name was accordingly given to the romantic spot where the startling news was first received. It thus commemorates two historic events—that of the battle and that of the founding. But now a new danger arose. In the Indians the Kentuckians had always an enemy at their doors. War now brought on them another. And the two now worked, hand in hand, for their destruction. This new enemy was the British posts, between the lakes and the Mississippi, only ten years back wrested from the French, and now once again become so many arsenals for the savages to sally forth from upon the devoted settlements. Small parties of savages were constantly lurking in ambush around the stations, or waylaying the trails between them, until it was no longer safe for a woman to go out to milk a cow, or a man to lead his horse to water. Nearly every day some riderless horse would come galloping into the lonely clearing. Many of the new settlers were frightened away, leaving only the veteran pioneers, as undaunted as ever, yet not too confident of holding their own. All knew it would be a gallant fight, but the odds were terribly against them. Indeed, no one knew which way to look for relief. Kentucky was, in fact, in sore straits, had not a man been found for the crisis, whose very audacity triumphed over all sorts of obstacles, foreseen or unforeseen. This was George Rogers Clarke,² originally a Virginian, now a Kentuckian, young, ardent, sanguine, and perhaps a trifle reckless withal. It was plain to him that Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit should be taken or destroyed. But that was easier said than done. To most men such

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a project would have seemed chimerical. Knowing this, Clarke very wisely kept his to himself. Clarke’s one clear idea was that, if these posts could be taken, all this marauding would cease, as the Indians would then be kept at home. It was a maxim as old as history. But the means were so wofully inadequate that any other man than Clarke would have faltered. He, however, knew no such word as fail. Back in 1774, England had extended the bounds of Canada, so as to include the region between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the lakes, now covered by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This was known as the Quebec Act. A military governor ruled over Canada, as in former times, only he was now English instead of French. The garrisons were also English. It was distrust of the French population that had led the English government to make many concessions to prevent their taking sides with the Americans, who had their emissaries at Vincennes as well as at Montreal. No doubt Clarke counted much upon this secret sympathy, in what he now contemplated. Clarke had first to go to Williamsburg, Va., to get the requisite authority, then back to the frontiers for men. Convinced that men would not enlist for such a distant, if not Quixotic, expedition, he carefully concealed the real destination from them. After much trouble and delay, he finally got together some one hundred and fifty hardy borderers, with whom he came down the Ohio from Fort Pitt, in May, 1778. Some families, bound for Kentucky, put themselves under his escort, as far as the Falls, where Clarke landed to build a block-house, designed to be his base of supplies. Leaving these families here as a guard, Clarke again embarked for the lower Ohio.

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During the winter and spring, these people left their post at Corn Island, landed on the Kentucky shore, and there began Louisville.³ June 28th, nine hundred and fifty miles from their starting-point, the party landed eleven miles below the mouth of the Tennessee. 4 Here the boats were hid among the reeds, against their return. They then struck off through the woods for Kaskaskia, subsisting on what they could kill by the way, though sometimes driven to eat roots or go hungry. Fortunately, the route was an unfrequented one, and no Indians were met with; so that the sudden appearance of the invaders before Kaskaskia, July 4th, was the first warning of their approach. There was no resistance. Clarke had only to march in. The settlements above at once submitted, the American flag was joyfully raised, and the authority of Virginia formally proclaimed. These settlements were not what they had been. Many of the old inhabitants had removed across the Mississippi, after the English conquest. 5 Those who remained received the Americans rather as friends than foes; for their sympathies were with them in their struggle with England. Clarke soon learned that Vincennes was quite unguarded; so, instead of sending an armed force, he sent an embassy there, which the inhabitants received as willingly as the Kaskaskians had. Clarke now declared the government of Virginia established over all this region. Perhaps not for one moment did he suspect that by this simple act he was giving the United States final possession of it. Though it may be otherwise, it is not likely. Virginia (October, 1778) then organized all the country between the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the lakes, as the County of the Illi-

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nois. And thus the first government of Illinois‚ under our flag‚ was by Virginia‚ through Kentucky. This is what makes Clarke’s conquest an epoch of history. 6 Clarke was a rude soldier, whose way with the Indians was to use hard words first, gentle afterwards. He was never their dupe or their servant. Though now unable

THE GARRISON MARCHING OUT.

to do all that lie had at first designed, the Intlians were so frightened that their bloody raids ceased for a time. Want of men and means alone prevented his marching on Detroit. He, however, kept up just as bold a front as if he had had plenty of both. When, therefore, in the autumn, Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, came down the Wabash, with a

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large force, Vincennes was garrisoned by only one man, besides the commanding officer, Helm, though Hamilton did not know this. Emulating his own commander’s audacity, Helm declared that he would defend the place to the last, unless allowed the honors of war. This being granted him, the gate was flung open, to let Helm and his one soldier march out, with arms and baggage, while the beholders stared to think how they had been duped. The next winter, by a still more wonderful march, through a country overflowed by the Wabash for miles on every side, Clarke recaptured Vincennes. The story 7 o f what his men endured is almost beyond belief. For days together they were wading through mud and water, knee-deep, happy if by chance they could find a dry spot of ground on which to encamp at night. If the men faltered, Clarke would put himself in the van. If they murmured, he would cheer them; and if they lagged, he would strike up a song. After exchanging a few shots Hamilton surrendered. “I knew,” said Clarke, dryly, “that if I did not take him, he would take me.” ¹ AT L E X I N G T O N , Mass., April 19, 1775. ² GEORGE R OGERS C LARKE . sometimes called the Hannibal of the West, on account of his marches, commanded a company in Dunmore’s campaign of 1774. (See Battle of Point Pleasant.) Besides the events narrated in this chapter, he saw service in Old Virginia, under Baron Steuben. But the West was the field in which he won most renown. In 1782 Clarke was in command of the Kentucky militia, with headquarters at Fort Nelson, Louisville. He died in poverty 1818. ³ LOUISVILLE was at first known only as The Falls. The first settlers moved

into a fort, built by them at the foot of the present Twelfth Street. It came into corporate existence as a town in 1780. It then had a population of some six hundred persons. The name is said to have been given in compliment to Louis XVI., whose queen was similarly honored in the name of Marietta, O. Gen. G. R. Clarke, after his Wabash campaign, established his headquarters there, built Fort Nelson, and constructed a rowgalley to patrol the Ohio, as far up as the Licking. Its earliest history, therefore, is that of a military post, like Pittsburg, nor did it become the first town in Kentucky until some twenty years later. 4 THEY LANDED at Fort Massac, an

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abandoned work, built by the French to command the mouth of the Ohio. It stood on a high bluff overlooking the river, and is one of the reservations set apart by the United States in the Treaty of Greenville. 5 T HE DESERTING inhabitants built St. Louis. See Making of the Great West , p. 179.

6 THIS EPOCH of history is further explained in a succeeding chapter. 7 THE STORY is told in Major Bowman’s Journal, the original of which is in the library of the Kentucky Historical Society, Louisville; also in Cist’s Advertiser , Cincinnati, of May 6, 1846; and in a more or less abridged form in many other reprints.

BOONE’S CAPTURE AND ESCAPE

M E A N W H I L E , the Ohio tribes kept harrying the Kentuckians as before. In one of these raids Boone had been taken, while out hunting, and carried off in triumph to the great Shawnee town (Chillicothe) on the Little Miami. Whether he was alive or dead could not be learned; but his wife mourned him as dead. One day a man, dressed like an Indian, came staggering across the clearing at Boonesborough. This wretchedlooking object was Boone. He had come, like one risen from the dead, to warn the unsuspecting settlers of their peril. Boone had seen, with fear, the ominous mustering in his village of four hundred warriors, all armed and painted for war. To his dismay he learned that they were going to attack his own home, Boonesborough. A hundred and sixty miles off, the station lay in fancied security. What was to be done? His captors watched his every step, even though he had been adopted as one of themselves. His head was shaved, his face painted, his skin, they said, changed from white to red. Though to escape seemed nearly hopeless, Boone knew that, if he would save his friends, not a moment was to be lost. So, watching his opportunity, he fled.

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In a little less than five days he reached the station, more dead than alive, as, until he had put the Ohio between himself and his pursuers, he neither dared to fire at a deer, nor light a fire, for fear the report or the smoke might betray him. In this race of life and death he had pushed human endurance to its farthest limits. Fortunately, however, he had outstripped his pursuers. Under Boone’s skilful guidance, men, women, and even children set to work strengthening the place. Early in August (1778) the enemy appeared before it with an army. Boone had but fifty fighting men. When summoned to surrender he replied that he would fight so long as one was left alive. The attack then began. For twelve days the firing on both sides scarcely ceased, yet the brave little garrison repelled every assault. All this time, instead of crying and wringing their hands, the fearless Kentucky women stood side by side with the men, loading rifles, running bullets, bringing water, or nursing the wounded. Boone’s own daughter was hit at his side. Finding Boonesborough too strong for them, the besiegers retreated, with the loss of thirty-seven killed to the garrison’s two. In his account of this affair Boone says, with grim humor, “We picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds of bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of our fort, which is certainly a great proof of the enemy’s industry.” Despite this harassing warfare, people continued to flock into Kentucky, from Virginia especially, as if to escape the evils of war at home. A prisoner of war wrote to England that the number was amazing. He saw them leaving comfortable homes and plantations, which it had been the labor of their whole lives to clear and bring to perfection, cheerful and happy, though nearly a

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thousand miles lay between them and Kentucky. Their mode of travelling, he says, “greatly resembles that of the patriarchs of old, for they take with them their horses, oxen, sheep, and other cattle, as likewise all kinds of poultry. I saw a family setting off for this new settlement, leaving behind them a neat habitation, surrounded with everything needful to make it the mansion of content and happiness.” This was in the year 1779. We now find new stations springing up on all sides. In April, 1779, a block-house was built to defend “the three rows of cabins,” known as Lexington. Five miles above, Bryan’s Station was established. Louisville also received some accessions. From this time forth there was a steady growth, though Kentucky was yet only a collection of fortified villages, outside of which no man’s life was safe. Out-door work, therefore, could only go on by having some keep watch, while others worked. As regards the people who had come to Kentucky thus far, most were Virginians, though many were from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina. Much the greater proportion were the children of original English, Scotch, or Scotch-Irish emigrants. Boone, Harrod, Shelby, and many other prominent Kentuckians belonged to this second generation, native to the soil and partaking of its robust character.

ELIZABETH ZANE’S HEROISM

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ELIZABETH ZANE’S HEROISM

E LIZABETH Z A N E’ S heroism during the attack on Wheeling (1782), near the Kentucky border, deserves especial praise. The house of her brother, Colonel Ebenezer Zane, at a little distance from the fort, contained a supply of ammunition, and was garrisoned by seven or eight persons, male and female, besides his own family. Before firing upon the fort, the Indians demanded the surrender of the house. A well-directed fire was the reply. The women moulded bullets, charged the guns, and handed them to the men, enabling them to keep up so constant a discharge as to cause the assailants to recoil in dismay. At night they attempted to fire the house. A savage crawled to the kitchen, and while endeavoring to set it on fire with a burning brand, received a shot from a black man which sent him yelling away. Fortunately, as it turned out, for the garrison in the fort, the Indians had captured a boat laden with cannon-balls. All they wanted now was a cannon with which to batter down the palisades of the fort. Indian ingenuity soon supplied the want. A hollow log was found; to render this new kind of ordnance safe, they procured chains from a neighboring blacksmith’s shop, and twisted them strongly around the improvised cannon. It was then heavily charged, pointed toward the palisade, and fired. It burst into a thousand fragments, killed some, wounded others, and convinced the survivors of their folly in meddling with the white man’s inventions. Exasperated by this failure, they returned to the assault of the house. A deadly fire again compelled them to retire. Meanwhile, the long continuance of the siege had used up the

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ammunition in the fort. Powder must be brought from Zane’s house, in which there was a good supply. Though it was a forlorn hope, plenty of volunteers offered. Zane’s young sister, just from a boarding-school in Philadelphia, was of the number. When reminded of the advantage which a man would have over her in fleetness and force, the heroine replied: “Should he fall, his loss will be more severely felt. You have not a man to spare; a woman will not be missed in the defence of the fort.” Her services were accepted. Arranging her dress for the purpose, she bounded from the gate. The Indians gazed in amazement at her daring, only exclaiming, “A squaw, a squaw!” and making no attempt to stop her. With a table-cloth filled with powder bound round her waist, she returned safely to the fort, escaping untouched amid a volley of balls, several of which passed through her clothes. The fort was soon afterward relieved and the siege raised.

TO THE PEACE OF 1783

K ENTUCKY was, if possible, to pass through still greater trials; for though Clarke’s firm hand held the Wabash tribes neutral, the Ohio tribes kept up their sanguinary raids as before. Especially is the year 1782 memorable in the annals of Kentucky, as being the last effort these tribes were to put forth on her soil during the war. War had driven those who sympathized with England out of the border. Some were notoriously bad characters, some mere desperadoes. Many of them now took refuge among the Delawares, Wyandots, or Shawnees, over whom they ob-

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tained great influence. These Indians were soon out on the war-path again, led by renegade whites. The worst ruffian of them all was one Simon Girty. In his lifetime this Girty had been everything except an honest man. A cruel and vindictive spirit made him the congenial companion of savages, but while they fought for their rights, as we must own, Girty was no better than a hired cutthroat. He was, however, an enemy no less hated than feared. The first warning of Girty’s being in Kentucky was his sudden assault on Bryan’s Station. It was stoutly defended. Failing to take it, he slowly fell back toward the Licking. Meantime, runners were spreading the alarm. The Kentuckians, who came flocking to Bryan’s from the nearest stations, some mounted, some on foot, on finding themselves about one hundred and eighty strong, with veteran leaders among them, started off in hot pursuit. Though small, the band included Kentucky’s best and bravest. In vain the older and wiser heads advised waiting for Logan, who was on the march to join them. The younger men fairly ran away with them in their eagerness to bring the villain, Girty, to bay. This came to pass all too quickly. The crafty Girty had crossed the Licking, and was now lying in wait for his pursuers, a short way beyond the famous Blue Licks.¹ His hope was to decoy them across, and then drive them back into the river. His six hundred warriors were posted in two bushy ravines, so as to command the ground over which the Kentuckians must advance, should they pass the Licking. In this unassailable position he lay like a tiger ready to spring. At the crossing the Kentuckians held a brief council in the saddle. It disclosed a dare-devil recklessness on

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the part of a few thoughtless ones, only too common on the frontiers. It was broken off by the foolhardy conduct of one of these men, named McGary, who spurred on his horse into the stream, crying out, “Let those who are not cowards follow me!” Stung by this taunt, horse and foot plunged headlong into the river. When across it the Kentuckians spread themselves out, right and left, in one thin line, as their manner was. No enemy was seen until firing began, and it was terrible. When too late, the assailants found themselves between two fires. They gave way. In a moment the Indians were upon them with the tomahawk. This decided the day. THE COUNT DE VERGENNE s . Mad with fear, the riflemen broke away for the crossing, with the screeching redskins in hot pursuit. At the ford rifle and tomahawk did dreadful work among the fugitives. All told² the losses counted half the strength of the command. All Kentucky was now up. Once again, the veteran Clarke called for volunteers to attack these raiders in their strongholds. It was like a trumpet-call. Nearly a

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thousand riflemen flocked to the appointed rendezvous. With this formidable force Clarke invaded the Miami country, burning and destroying everything as he went.

WHAT FRANCE WOULD HAVE GIVEN US, 1782.

The Indians fell back before him; and though he could never bring them to battle, he left their country desolate. Peace put an end to this enfeebling border warfare. To the Indians it had been a failing fight; to the Kentuckians a costly one. 9

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When it came to settling the terms of peace, Clarke’s lucky seizure of the western posts probably gave us the boundary of the lakes, though not without the secret opposition of our ally, France.³ France wished, indeed, to see the new nation free, but not great, through her means. And had she dictated the terms of peace, the United States would have been kept nearly within their old limits as colonies. When Vergennes, the French minister, was found out, the English and American commissioners came to an agreement without him. As it was, there was sharp talk between them, before a settlement satisfactory to both was reached. “You are afraid of being made the tools of the powers of Europe,” said Oswald to Adams. “Indeed I am‚” replied Adams. “What powers?” asked Oswald. “All of them,” was the blunt reply. When the negotiations were about to be broken off, England came over to our side. November 30, 1782, the treaty was signed. 4 Owing to too great haste or to ignorance, or perhaps to both, the boundaries of the United States were so loosely defined in the treaty, that our northeastern limits were not settled until the year 1842, or the northwestern until 1846; and in each case the settlement came perilously near involving us in war with England again. 5 ¹ BLUE L I C K S. The salt springs so widely distributed over central Kentucky, under the name of licks, exerted no little influence upon the settlement of the State. First they furnished an unfailing supply of salt, and salt was an article of prime necessity. Next, being the resort of the bison, the elk, and the deer, whose well-beaten roads were the white men’s first paths, the hunters were in the habit of repairing to them for food.

These licks gave their names to the Licking, on which are the Upper and Lower Blue Licks, and to the Salt River, besides many other localities. The miry ground around them has given up strange secrets. At the Big Bone Lick, in Boone Co., twenty miles below Cincinnati, the huge bones of the elephant and mastodon, of prehistoric times, have been turned up in large quantities. Whether these monsters simply became mired by their

THE COMMONWEALTH own weight, or perished in deadly combat, their remains afford indisputable evidence of wonderful changes in the animal kingdom. Captain Butler, who visited the Big Bone Lick in 1784, says: “I saw a thighbone that measured, at the big end, three feet round, and a jaw-bone that must have weighed near fifty pounds. A number of these bones have been sent to England and France, and they cannot tell what bones they are. Some say they are elephants, but I think they are larger.”— Mag. of Am. Hist. ² THE LOSSES , like the numbers engaged, have been variously estimated, at from 67 to 77, left on the ground. Colonels Todd and Trigg, Majors Harlan and Bulger, and Captains Gordon, Bulger, McBride, and Lindsey, were among the slain. Boone’s son, Israel, was carried off the field, by his father,

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mortally wounded. Logan arrived on the ground in time to bury the dead. Girty had decamped. ³ OPPOsITION FROM FRANCE arose from her intriguing to recover some part of what she had lost by the treaty of 1763. The negotiation was not very honorable to her. See Life of Lord Shelburne, iii., 300; Making of the Great West, 163, 164, 168, note. 4 T REATY SIGNED, but not ratified for nearly a year, on account of a private agreement between France, Spain, and the United States, by which one could not conclude a peace without the others. 5 T H E M A P , with the line as finally fixed, is in the King’s Library, British Museum. Mitchell’s Map (1755), used in the settlement of the Maine boundary question, 1842, is in the Public Record Office.

THE COMMONWEALTH “What constitutes a state? Not high-raised battlements or labored mound, Thick walls or moated gate.”—Sir William Jones.

W E know men’s principles by their laws. Among the nine laws of the Transylvania Colony was one to prevent profane swearing and Sabbath-breaking. While this certainly suggests the existence of a crying evil, it quite as truly denotes a self-respecting people, with a sound moral sentiment at the bottom. Still another law looked to preserving the breed of horses. This, in turn, suggests that the early Kentuckian prized his horse quite as highly as the Arab does, because, like the Arab, he often owed his life to the fleetness of his steed. We learn, also, why in later times the Kentucky breed of horses became so famous.

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Of course, when this colony fell to pieces, its laws went with it. The spirit of those laws, however, lived on, whether written or unwritten made little difference, so long as the people themselves believed in them, as they seem to have done. As every new settler’s first concern is for his homestead, so the means of securing it has everything to do with the prosperity of a State. Here the men who had gone out with Washington or Braddock had been promised a gift of a certain amount of public lands, so, if a soldier, he was entitled to locate so many acres of vacant land, to which, after entry at the Land Office, he would get his deed. If a citizen, he could take up a homestead of four hundred acres, with the right of pre-emption to a thousand more,¹ very much as he can under our pre-emption laws to-day. Only a small fee was required in his case, but he had to make his own surveys, there being as yet no official one. Out of this loose practice endless troubles arose, in which honest, but ignorant folk, like Daniel Boone, lost both labor and lands at the hands of unprincipled land-sharks and sharpers. Kentucky’s first standing as a political unit came when she was set off as a county in December, 1776. Harrodsburg was made the county-seat, so it was there the courts of justice for all Kentucky were first set up. In just four years (1780) there were enough people to call for a new division into three counties: namely, Lincoln, Fayette, and Jefferson, each having a county lieutenant set over it, as in Virginia. Todd was the senior, Boone second, and Logan third in rank. In two years² more (1782), these three counties were made a judicial district, Harrodsburg being the place for holding the courts. We learn that for want of proper

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accommodations there, the court had to sit in a meetinghouse six miles off, which led, a little later, to the rise of a new station called Danville. As the sittings of the courts brought the people together, these occasions were naturally improved for political discussions, and Danville thus became the political centre, also. Kentucky’s first-born child had not arrived at manhood when she herself was demanding a separation from the parent State. The oldest colony had, indeed, planted a robust progeny in the Great West. Not but they loved the mother colony well enough, but the very fact of having to shift for themselves was sure to build up an independent spirit, which was drawn in with the very air they breathed, and grew with their growth. So, in 1785 the movement began, and though it lingered along some six years yet, because of conditions prudently imposed by Virginia, separation was looked upon as a foregone conclusion. But Kentucky was first to pass through a most trying ordeal. ¹ Every man who, before March, 1780, had been one year in the country, or raised a crop of corn, was allowed this. After that the settlement and pre-emption rights ceased, and treasury warrants were issued instead, authorizing the holders to locate a given number

of acres wherever vacant land could be found. ² The population in 1783 was estimated at 12,000; in 1784, at 30,000, showing the enormous increase was owing to the disbanding of the American army. In 1810 it was 406,511.

AN OLD KENTUCKY HOME “A ploughman on his legs is higher than a gentleman on his knees.”—Franklin

S A V E when shut up in their stations by the Indians, the Kentuckians, as a rule, did not have to endure that pinching want, so trying to the early colonists of the seaboard. Food, at least, was to be had for the taking.

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Though wild game supplied the settler’s first and most pressing wants, Indian corn, or maize, was always his first crop. Bread for his meat prompted his first rude husbandry. In that rich virgin soil, nothing was so easily grown as corn. Even by dropping a few kernels into holes made with an axe among the stumps, a first harvest could be had. Rude husbandry this, yet it did very well until the ground could be thoroughly cleared for the plough. Sometimes these very corn-fields served as ambushes for Indians to lurk unseen in, as we are told they did in the attack on Estill’s Station, in 1782. After harvest, for want of mills to grind it, the settler or his boys pounded the corn to a coarse meal, in a mortar, as the Indians did. His good wife then stirred in a little salt, and a little water, until the dough could be patted between the hands into a rough cake. It was then carefully wrapped up in clean corn-husks and put on the embers to bake. This was the Kentucky corndodger, sometimes called a bannock in other localities. It remains a favorite article of food to this day, though good teeth are needed to break the thick crust. For his salt the settler had only to go to the nearest salt lick; but this being a very hazardous thing to do, so long as Indians were prowling about to kill him, the salt-makers went out only in strong parties, prepared to fight. They pitched their camp near the lick, set their kettles to boiling, posted guards, and worked or watched by turns. It was while out with one such party that Boone was carried off captive, by a war-party of Shawnees, from whom he made his escape, as is elsewhere related. Sugar was supplied him in abundance from the sugar-

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maples, which grow luxuriantly all over Kentucky. One enthusiastic traveller declared the Kentucky sugar as good as any he had ever seen brought from the West Indies. Hemp, flax, and even cotton were soon grown with success, more for home use, however, than export, though short trial showed that hemp was likely to be a most valuable staple, as it has since proved. The settlers made linen from flax of their own raising. All real wants, such as food and clothing, were, therefore, easily and abundantly supplied from the soil itself. After providing for his daily bread, the settler began to think of a crop for profit. All Virginians knew how to raise tobacco, so very soon tobacco was generally planted in all the settlements, though at first there was only a home market for it. Its use, however, was quite general, not only by men, but women also. An old wife, sitting in the chimney corner smoking her pipe, is no very uncommon sight in the mountainous districts of Kentucky to-day. An anecdote will best serve to show at what risks ordinary vocations were carried on, even under the rifles of the stations. Boone, himself, was one day busy at work, hanging up his tobacco in his drying-shed, when four stout Indians noiselessly glided in at the low door, one after another. Wholly unaware of their presence, Boone was standing somewhat above them, on some poles, when he heard someone say: “Now, Boone, we got you; you no get away any more. We carry you off to Chillicothe, this time sure. You no cheat us any more, Boone.” Boone gave a look down into their upturned faces, as astonished a man as can well be conceived, yet his iron self-command enabled him to control his feelings admirably, though the muzzles of their guns

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nearly touched him. He saw by their paint that they were Shawnees, and old acquaintances of his former captivity. All this time they kept him covered with their guns. His only chance was to gain time enough to devise some means of escape. Greeting the grinning wretches as old friends, Boone kept them in talk until he could scrape together some handfuls of fine dry tobacco dust, directly over the spot where they stood looking up at him, in triumph to think how cleverly they had trapped the great white hunter. Quick as a flash he flung the dust down into their faces, sprang lightly to the ground, dashed them aside and darted out of the cabin, leaving the blinded Indians stamping about them with rage and pain at the trick thus played upon them. Cut off, as he was, from the rest of the world, the Kentuckian’s industrial progress could not help being slow. In a short time he raised more tobacco than he could sell. This turned his attention early to the Spanish market at New Orleans, which could be reached by the rivers running past his door. But the distance there and back was more than equal to a voyage to Europe and back, if computed by the time required to go down the river in a flatboat, and return by land. Nevertheless, it is quite true that the Kentucky planter could ship his tobacco to Philadelphia, at less cost, by way of New Orleans than by way of Pittsburg. And notwithstanding the exactions of the Spanish authorities, who shut the way to free commerce, a lucrative trade soon sprung up. And this tobacco trade, strange as it may seem at first sight, was the means of splitting Kentucky into two warring factions. Corn was, however, the general crop at first, though worth only about twelve cents a bushel, of our money, in consequence of its sale being restricted to the home market.

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So up to 1784 the chief trade carried on with the outside world was that in furs and in horses. The furs were sent either to Alexandria or Philadelphia, taking the Wilderness road across the Alleghanies. The same animals either brought back such commodities as would bear the cost of transportation, or were sold at the journey’s end. In order to make this trip with safety, it was customary for the fur-traders to join company at Crab Orchard, then a frontier fort next the wilderness, before setting out. When they had thus assembled in sufficient numbers, all armed to the teeth, sometimes with a hundred packhorses loaded with furs, the cavalcade puts one in mind of the caravans passing the Arabian deserts. But had the Kentuckians no pastimes? Was it all work and no play with them? As early as 1775, it is said, there was a race-track laid out at Shallow Ford Station. A settler, who was trying his horse’s speed on it, was shot from a covert by an Indian. A good many slaves were brought to Kentucky from Virginia, whose mirth-loving propensities no doubt imparted an element of gayety even to the most serious times. One of their chief merry-makings was the annual corn-husking, or “shucking,” as it is called at the West, when all the negroes in the neighborhood would be called in to take part. The huge corn-pile would first be divided into two equal parts, and the negroes into two equal bands, after which each went to work with a will, trying to husk its own pile the first, to the accompaniment of a banjo. The player would sing some rude ditty, to which the sable band would keep time with head or hand, joining heartily in the refrain; like this, for example:

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AN OLD KENTUCKY HOME “Oh, I wish I had de eagle’s wing! Ho! ho! he—ho, ho! I’d fly away to a wild-goose land. Ho! ho! he—ho, ho!”

Occasions of general rejoicing were sometimes celebrated by a barbecue, which was the roasting of a whole sheep, or even an ox, over a pit dug for the purpose, the animal being propped up on spits, over a bed of live coals. Then there was shooting at a mark, the stories of which throw William Tell’s famous exploit into the shade, as it was no uncommon thing for one man to hold up some small object in his hand for another to fire at, or for the marksman to hit an apple thrown into the air. Before we take leave of the hunter, farmer, and trader, all in one, let us look at his home life. When he threw open the door of his humble cabin at the close of a long day’s tramp, he saw before him a fire blazing brightly on the hearth of its one room, with a juicy joint of venison roasting merrily before it on the spit. The firelight showed him the faces of the inmates turned to welcome his safe return. And he, as his quick eye ran over the group, from the aged grandmother in the chimney corner, to the tow-headed urchin clinging to his mother’s linseywoolsey gown, inwardly thanked God that not one was missing. The blaze also lighted up the rough logs, filled between with clay, the roof of slabs, the uneven floor of split logs, the skins drying on the walls and rafters. While his faithful dog was sedately receiving the caresses of the children, the hunter was carefully hanging up the trusty rifle, and putting off his hunting gear with all despatch. By this time the smoking haunch, some cornbread, and perhaps a few roasted sweet potatoes, all sending out their savory odor, would be on the table, with a

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jug of water brought from the spring to wash the viands down. Over this frugal meal the assembled family then reverently bowed their heads, while the head of it gave thanks for their daily bread. Every such humble cabin was the cradle of a robust people. To most of them such things as pewter dishes or platters, knives, forks, or spoons were a luxury; but every boy of fifteen could break a colt or track a deer, while at eighteen he often found himself the head of the family. Most of the farm labor was performed by blacks, thus leaving the whites free to indulge that love for adventure which forms so striking a trait of the Kentuckian’s character.

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I N Kentucky we have seen the wedge driven home that was to split the pagan West asunder, north and south, for all time. Still more, the planting of ten thousand resolute whites along the south side of the Ohio, alarmed the Indians for their own situation. Their control of the river was disputed; their forays were sure to be swiftly revenged; their numbers every day diminishing; and so they were wise enough to see that, contend as they would, the foot of the white man could not be turned back. One striking result of this change in the attitude of the white and red man here, is seen in the departure of the warlike Shawnees from the lower Scioto to the interior. Grown wise in season, they were falling back to concentrate. Those villages, therefore, which had so long been the terror of travellers, as well as the rendezvous for raids into Kentucky, and where so many miser-

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able prisoners had suffered unheard-of tortures, were now abandoned for good; and with their desertion the Kentuckians could also breathe more freely, since they would no longer serve as a shield for the war-parties mustering to invade them. We hold this falling back, therefore, a most instructive sign of the times. We know it is sometimes done the better to gather headway for a long leap forward; but this was confessed weakness. From the moment that the whites had succeeded in gaining a firm foothold in Kentucky, all Indians knew that the first battle had gone against them; whichever way they turned, they saw a foe. By this time they also knew just what to expect from the whites. To borrow a figure from Scripture, they had seen “the handwriting on the wall.” Looking backward was grievous; looking forward, despair. They were naturally a brave people; we shall find them so to the end. Of course nothing was easier than for these Arabs of the West to remove their villages. In an hour their whole property could be packed on the backs of their nimblefooted ponies; in two they could be on the march. But when we find them giving up a strategic point, like these Scioto villages, we know it must be because they felt themselves unable to hold the ground longer. In the course of the late war several expeditions had marched north of the Ohio, and marched back again, without doing the Indians great harm, as they would never fight if the odds were too heavily against them. That of General Clarke, up the Miami, has been related already. Earlier still (1778), General McIntosh had advanced from Fort Pitt to the Tuscarawas, where he built Fort Laurens,¹ right in the heart of the Delaware country,

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and left a garrison in it, as if to overawe the hostile tribes. Instead, however, of being a check upon them, the garrison soon found themselves close prisoners, afraid either to stay in the fort or leave it. That step, therefore, was prematurely taken. It is true that there was a faction among the Delawares of this region who favored the Americans, but they were only a few among many. McIntosh saved the garrison, but the fort had to be abandoned afterward. It did not, by any means, escape attack. In making their assault here the Indians showed their usual cunning. Not daring to assault openly, they tried stratagem. All the INDIAN PIPE-BOWLS . horses belonging to the garrison had been turned out to graze, bells being first put on them to tell where to find them. Having caught the horses overnight, the Indians took off their bells, hid themselves around the fort, and in the morning, by jingling the bells, lured out some sixteen soldiers, to search for the stray animals. All

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but two were shot down before the trick was discovered. Other expeditions served no purpose whatever, except to keep alive the feeling of exasperation existing on both sides of the Ohio. When the Indians were beaten, it was usually called a victory; when the whites, it was a massacre. It is hardly possible to conceive a worse state of feeling than that which existed all along the disputed border at the close of the Revolutionary War. ¹ Fort Laurens was near the present town of Bolivar.

THE PILGRIMS OF OHIO

T H E first white settlers in what is now the State of Ohio were some Moravian missionaries,¹ who had first gone among the Delawares, in Pennsylvania, and afterward followed them to Ohio (1772). They were good Christian men and women, engaged in a most worthy cause; their converts also were sober, intelligent, industrious people, but they would not fight, even in their own defence, because they believed all war to be a crime; and men who would not fight were sure to become, as these Moravians soon did, a byword and a jest, all up and down the lawless border. Still this did not deter them, for they thought to let their good works speak for them; nor was it possible they could ever have conceived the fate in store for them. They and their Indian converts founded three neat villages along the Tuscarawas, a main branch of the Muskingum, in as delightful a situation as ever heart of man could desire; and here, as if by magic, arose a

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little Christian commonwealth whose simple laws were founded on the teachings of Christ himself. Each village had its own church and school-house; each schoolhouse was provided with spelling-books in the Delaware tongue; and all took part in the daily exercise of song and praise, as well as in the labors of the field. Here the Revolutionary War found them. This war let loose the worst passions on both sides of the border. Worse still, it brought the lawless element uppermost, as war is always sure to do. Alas! for the poor Moravians, who now saw themselves placed between two hostile camps, and under suspicion in both. At Pittsburg they were charged with covertly aiding hostile war-parties; at Detroit with sending intelligence to Pittsburg. In vain they protested their strict neutrality. A neutral, between two belligerents, must have power to maintain his neutrality by force, if necessary; and these people, like the Quakers, were bound hand and foot by their own creed of non-resistance. This could not last. The British Indian agent, at Detroit, applied to the great council of the Six Nations to remove those Christian Indians out of the country. Upon this demand the compliant Iroquois sent a war message to the Chippewas and Ottawas to this effect: “Brothers, we herewith make you a present of the Christian Indians to make soup of,” which was the same as giving permission to murder them. To their credit, the Chippewas and Ottawas sent back the cruel message with the reply, “Brothers, we have no cause for doing this.” Failing to get this vile work done by others, the British commandant himself sent a war-party to remove the Moravians, or what was the same thing, he gave his authority to those who stood only too ready to execute

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it. In vain the Moravians begged for time. Their missionaries were seized, their villages plundered, and they themselves forced to depart in such haste as to leave their ungathered crops standing in the fields. All this happened in September, 1781. Having saved nothing except their lives, these poor people then took their way to Sandusky, where they wintered. But want pinched them so that, in their distress, a hundred or more went back to gather the corn left standing at the time of their flight. On March 7, 1782, while quietly engaged in this work,² they were surprised, made prisoners, and all but two or three butchered by a party of American rangers from the Ohio.³ In May, 1782, a second expedition marched against the remnant of the Moravians at Upper Sandusky. The Moravians, having been warned in time, had made their escape. No sooner, however, had the Americans began their homeward march than they were attacked, defeated, and driven back by the warriors who had gathered in their rear. Colonel Crawford, the American commander, fell into the enemy’s hands, and was burned at the stake. ¹ THE M ORAVIANS , or United Brethren, so called from having planted themselves in Moravia. They were introduced into England, 1738, by their bishop, Count Zinzendorf, and by him also into America, in 1741, their earliest mission being established among the Mohicans of Connecticut and New York. From here they went to the Lehigh, in Pennsylvania, where they founded Bethlehem, Gnadenhütten, etc. Wesley is said to have taken

some of their forms of worship for his own Christian plan. See Bethlehem and the Moravians. ² THIS was at Gnadenhütten (tents of grace), named for an earlier Moravian town on the Lehigh; refounded by Heckewelder in 1801. ³ Two boys, who made their escape, gave the horrible particulars. Anthony Benezet’s account is considered trustworthy. See his Observations, etc.

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THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY “The Ohio soon shall glide by many a town of note.”—Freneau.

T HIS was a truly remarkable prophecy to be uttered as far back as 1772, while the whole region north of the Ohio was yet an uncouth wilderness. All we have to do is to trace out its early fulfilment. By the treaty of peace, England gave up to the United States all the territory¹ she had wrested from France twenty years before, south of the great lakes. England did not know what she was giving up; we did not know it ourselves. Here was this great block of wilderness country—an empire in itself—become ours by a stroke of the pen. There were, it is true, sixty odd thousand wild Indians in it, yet to be settled with. Our country is often called the asylum for the oppressed of all nations. The Northwest first became an asylum for the deserving poor among our own countrymen. It is a strange story of national rectitude triumphing over national ingratitude and neglect. The movement for settling up the newly acquired territory had its beginning in our army at Newburg.² The situation was this: The army was about to be disbanded. As there was no money to pay it with, it was on the point of mutiny. The country was, in fact, bankrupt. It had borrowed until it could do so no longer. It had made and put out so much paper money, without knowing when or how it was to be redeemed, that nobody would take it, except at a ruinous discount to the holder. So low, indeed, had this paper money fallen, 10

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fore their brother officers, whose efforts were cordially seconded by Washington himself. The idea took so well that a monster petition soon went out from the camp to the Congress, praying for a grant of lands north of the Ohio, in redemption of its pledges to its soldiers. Congress was slow; the army impatient. Not that Congress was unwilling to do so simple an act of justice, if it had possessed either the power or means; unfortunately it had neither the one nor the other. To say all, we were not yet, in any sense, a nation; 4 we were only a league of confederates, banded together for the single purpose of achieving our independence. The league had shown itself strong enough for war, but proved too RUFUS PUTNAM. weak for peace. We were not one sovereign, but thirteen, which the soldiers had often grumblingly compared to a barrel without hoops. Thus far, then, a common danger had held the States together, though peace now left them like a ship that has indeed weathered the storm, but sees no land ahead. It was a great peril, out of which came the admirable Constitution under which we now live. Then there were obstacles in the way. Several States,

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for example, claimed prior rights in the public domain through that provision in their old musty royal charters carrying their boundaries to the South Sea; New York through the Iroquois in a still more indefinite way; while all the rest insisted that, inasmuch as the territory in question had been conquered at the common expense, it should be treated as common property. All these old claims really rested upon nothing but ignorance in their makers. So Congress sat with its hands tied, until one day Dr. Witherspoon 5 got up in his seat to ask why this splendid domain might not be used for paying off the public debt—which included, of course, what was due to the soldiers, as well as to other importunate creditors. The more the idea was considered the more it was liked. One by one the interested States gave up their claims. New York led off in 1782; Virginia followed in 1784; Massachusetts in 1785; Connecticut in 1786 to all hers except a strip lying along the lake shore, which, for that reason, presently took the name of the Connecticut Reserve. 6 Virginia also reserved a tract lying between the Scioto and the Little Miami, which, in like manner, was called the Virginia Military District. This was to make good her pledges to her own soldiers. Two very large parcels of land were thus left at the disposal of two of the original claimants, for the benefit of their own soldiers; so that in time a new Connecticut, so to speak, sprung up on Lake Erie, and a new Virginia on the Ohio. It resulted that the disbanded soldiers became preferred creditors of the new nation. All were agreed that the public domain could hardly have been put to a better use.

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Thus it was that, just as it was going out of existence, the Old Confederation, which nobody respected, and nobody would trust, created the New Northwest in a spirit of the wisest statesmanship. We have now to consider a third and fourth grant from the Old Confederation. In May, 1785, even before the cession was complete, Congress ordered a survey to be made, beginning at the west line of Pennsylvania, and running back to within a few miles of the Muskingum, or at the extreme southeast corner of the unsettled territory. The body of land to be included in this survey was called the Seven Ranges, and Rufus Putnam received an appointment as one of the surveyors. For the protection of settlers, a new fort was also begun in the autumn of 1785, on the west bank of the Muskingum, at its mouth, called Fort Harmar, after Colonel Josiah Harmar, who soon took command of it. This was equivalent to advancing our frontier one hundred miles beyond Pittsburg, which had so long been a frontier post. Fort Finney also was built, in October of this year, at the mouth of the Great Miami. Though out of the army, Putnam had by no means ceased his efforts to get a grant of land from Congress, to be paid for in Continental paper money. His persistency, at length, carried the day; and as other engagements forbade his going west just then himself, he got Benjamin Tupper,7 an old comrade, to go in his place, and Tupper soon set out. When Tupper got to Pittsburg—no holiday journey then, we must remember—it was too late in the season to think of proceeding further. So that plan fell through. He saw many officers and traders, however, from whom

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he gathered all the information he could about the country next beyond the Seven Ranges. With this Tupper went back to New England, saw Putnam, told him what he had heard, and the two comrades sat up all night talking over their plans, which, by daybreak, had been put into the form of a call for a meeting, to be held at the Bunch of Grapes tavern, in Boston, early in March (1786). At this meeting a partial organization of a new Ohio Company 8 was effected. By July its prospects wore so encouraging a look that Manasseh Cutler, 9 a director, was sent to push on a negotiation, already begun with the Congress, for a million acres lying between the Scioto and Muskingum. This he did with equal tact and success, not only getting the lands practically on his own terms, but with such wise rules for governing the great territory, now first formed under his eye, as to show a wellS I G N O F T H E B U N C H O F G R A P E S . considered plan beforehand. In the act organizing it, passed July 13th, known as the Ordinance of 1787, it was provided that not less than three, nor more than five States might be formed from it. As a matter of fact, there have been six. 10 The most vital thing about this celebrated ordinance was the article excluding slavery. It is a great fact in our history, which time alone could take the full measure of. Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, was the member who had the courage to propose this legislation to a Congress largely made up of slaveholders. For the United States to undertake to put a limit to

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slavery was something as new, as we believe it was unexpected. Yet the proposal seems to have aroused little or no opposition. Perhaps its far-reaching effects could not so quickly be grasped. Be that as it may, Congress had now asserted its power to exclude slavery from the national domain. There were no heated discussions over it, no popular agitations, no monster petitions, as in later times. The territory northwest of the the Ohio was made free without a struggle. The ordinance did, however, provide for the return of fugitive slaves to their masters. It also declared that schools and the means of education “should be forever encouraged.” To encourage emigration these things, indeed, had been specifically provided for two years before, by setting apart one section in every township for the support of its public schools. The rights of the Indians were also carefully guarded by this instrument. But when were their rights ever observed? At this very time, by several treaties, 11 patched up with certain tribes or fragments of tribes, it was assumed that the Indian title to the granted lands had been extinguished, when, in fact, only a questionable one had been secured. We shall see what came of this by and by. By this organic law, the people of the Territory were treated as wards of the United States. The territorial government was vested in a governor, secretary, and three judges, who were to administer such laws only as were then in force in the States. They could not make new laws. This plan was expected to serve only until the people should be numerous enough to take part in the government, and enact laws for themselves. Then, the election of an assembly was provided for,

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though the suffrage was restricted to freeholders. Congress appointed General Arthur St. Clair first governor, a veteran officer universally respected, though the most unsuccessful of captains. He was past middle age, infirm, and dissatisfied with himself for having accepted the post. But Washington had urged his going, and so he weakly went. As governor, St. Clair could make treaties with the Indians. The Kentuckians, who had borne the brunt of the conflict in past years, were outspoken in their dislike of this new government across the river, more especially because they now had no voice in making these treaties; just a little, perhaps, because it promised to put a curb on their own raids. Kentucky was still a district of Virginia, but already she had shown signs of a higher progress by publishing the first newspaper of the Ohio Valley. This was the Kentucky Gazette, which came out at Lexington, in August, 1787. There was trouble brewing in still another quarter. Under a shallow pretence England still continued to hold the chain of posts on our northern frontier she had agreed to give up at the treaty of peace. They were, therefore, so many foreign arsenals for arming hostile tribes, within our own borders as well as without. Both countries were, therefore, in armed occupation of the Territory, both angry and defiant, so that nothing but the great distance between the Ohio and the lakes probably averted a collision. And as these posts commanded the water route to the Territory, travel was of necessity turned away to the Ohio. Thus matters stood at the passage of the act creating the Territory.

MARIETTA, THE CORNER-STONE ¹ THE TERRITORY ceded to the United States was the same as that ceded by France to Great Britain, or substantially that covered by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. See note 5, p. 131. ² AT N E W B U R G . Look up the condition of affairs at this time more fully, as related by Gordon, Bancroft, Irving (Life of Washington), and others. ³ RUFUS P UTNAM was born in Sutton, Mass., 1738; served in the French War, 1755-63; went into the army again on the breaking out of the Revolution, and served throughout the war with the reputation, not of a brilliant, but of a faithful and meritorious soldier. He first showed a native capacity for planning field-works at the siege of Boston, 1775. Rufus was a cousin of Israel Putnam. See Hildreth’s Pioneers. 4 NOT A NATION. For a fuller knowledge of what the Confederation was, read carefully The Articles of Confederation, and then compare with the present Constitution of the United States. 5 D R . JOHN W ITHERSPOON , clergyman and scholar, was of Scotch birth. In 1767 he became president of Princeton College; New Jersey sent him to the Congress, of which he was an influential and useful member. 6 C ONNECTICUT RESERVE included a tract one hundred and twenty miles long, lying between the parallel of 41º and Lake Erie. In October, 1783, the Legis-

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lature of Connecticut reaffirmed its rights of jurisdiction and pre-emption to all those lands lying west of Pennsylvania and east of the Mississippi, and north of 41°—the south line of Connecticut. Governor Trumbull then issued his proclamation warning off intruders. Later (1789), the Indian title was extinguished through the agency of Judge Samuel H. Parsons. 7 B ENJAMIN T UPPER , born 1738, was a soldier in the French War; served through the Revolutionary War, and was made one of the territorial judges in 1788. 8 T H E O H I O C O M P A N Y . Samuel H. Parsons, Rufus Putnam, and Manasseh Cutler, were directors. Parsons was made one of the judges of the Northwest Territory by Washington, and was drowned in the Big Beaver in 1789. 9 M ANASSEH C UTLER , minister, doctor, lawyer, and land agent, was minister of Hamilton, Mass., when called to take a prominent part in settling the Northwest, though he did not settle there himself. In 1788 he made the journey to the Ohio, mostly in a sulky, in twenty-nine days. His diary of this journey has been published. Three sons, Ephraim, Jervis, and Charles, settled in the Ohio Valley. 10 S EE the Ordinance itself at the end of this volume. 1 1 T REATIES of Fort Stanwix, 1784, Fort McIntosh, 1785, Fort Finney, 1786, and Fort Harmar, 1789.

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A LL being ready, early in the winter of 1787 a pioneer party of New Englanders set out for the Muskingum, soon followed by a second. Their object in going so late in the season was to be on the spot early in the spring. These emigrants had to take the old military

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road, stretching its long leagues across Pennsylvania, and over the Alleghanies, there being as yet no nearer way; but as some of them had wintered at Valley Forge, and some marched to Yorktown, neither the distance, nor the hardships of the journey gave them much concern. Upon reaching the Youghiogheny crossing, the party went into winter quarters,¹ as from this point the journey was to be finished by water. These men were hardy mechanics, so to work they went building a barge large enough to take them down the river, just as soon as it should be open again. No doubt many things served to remind them that they, too, were pilgrims, in a certain sense. They may even have realized that they were to be the founders of a New State, like their forefathers; so they cheerily christened their own little bark the M a y flower,² and freighted it with the fortunes of the Great Northwest, probably much wondering what sort of a land they themselves were bound to. On April 1st (1788) the Mayflower began her voyage down the Ohio. Though slow, the passage was simply delightful, for the emigrants now found themselves in a different climate, and as it seemed to them almost in a different world. The fish were of a totally different sort from anything they had ever seen before; many of the forest trees were also new to them; and whenever they landed, as now and then they did, the tales told them about the fertility of the soil seemed little short of the marvellous. On the 7th the Mayflower was moored to the bank opposite to Fort Harmar, over which the Stars and Stripes waved a welcome. There were forty-eight persons who landed, General

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Putnam having them in charge for the company. He was a man of imposing height and looks. The army had been for such as he a great school; it had taught them mutual respect, self-discipline, and a sublime patience. Their courage had too often been proved on the battle-field to need a word more. Respect for the law, reverence toward God, love of country, unshaken faith in their own ability to do whatever they set their hands to, distinguished one and all. These qualities were all strongly brought out from the moment that the most ambitious housebuilder among them struck his axe to the haft in the first tree. These frugal New Englanders thought it downright extravagance to be set to work chopping down black-walnut-trees, ELEPHANT MOUND. to be sawed up into building boards. One noble black-walnut measured twenty-two feet in girth; a sycamore, forty-four feet. Here, too, grew a profusion of the spreading horsechestnuts, whose fruit gave to Ohio its nickname of the “Buckeye State.” But among those best known, and most valued, by these New Englanders, was the sugarmaple, which promised future harvests of sweets in abundance. In this tree was so much timber; in that, so much sugar. Another object of curious wonder to these people was the depth of rich mould, seen as they sailed along the banks. But, perhaps, the greatest wonder of all

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fact that they were treading upon the bones of multitudes of men. These things done, the work of clearing and laying off house-lots went briskly on, Putnam himself being the surveyor. A large tract of land was planted with corn, apparently in common. Cabins and corn grew up together, though the corn was tall, while the first cabins were little low huts, covered in with walnut bark. The army officers, doing duty at Fort Harmar, looked across the river at the little settlement, daily rising before their eyes, with wonder and admiration; and one of them has set down in his diary how these people appeared “the most happy folks in the world;” how courteous and civil they were; and what order and submission to the authority established among them was observed by all alike. In a word, they carried their civilization with them. These settlers were struck with astonishment at the wonderful yield of corn, as compared with that of their old fields at home. It is related that one of them, on returning to New England for his family, said to his neighbor, “Why will you waste your time in cultivating such land as this? Out in the West we have to stand on tiptoe to break off an ear of corn; while here you have to stoop down.” In August, Manasseh Cutler, who had but just arrived, took a long walk over the city lots, and through the corn-field, which to a man just out of New England was amazing. “I should be as soon lost in it,” he declares, “in a cloudy day, as in a cedar swamp.” And he then goes on to tell how the surveyors had to do their work under the protection of a sergeant’s guard, for fear of prowling Indians; how one settler was bitten by a cop-

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perhead snake while asleep; and how the death of little Nabby Cushing, only thirteen months old, who had made all that long journey from the sea-coast, sadly reminded them that one of their first wants was to be a burialground. Agreeably to an old New England custom, a piece of land was set apart as a parsonage lot. In imitation of another, their first rules were published by posting them up on the trunk of a convenient beech-tree that stood alone in the ragged clearing, for as yet they had no other laws than those of their own making. Return J. Meigs, who drew them up, was appointed to see that they were obeyed. For a time their meetings were held in a large tent, taken at Saratoga, and brought all the way here from the seaboard. There was intelligent forethought in the act setting apart two townships from the grant for a university. It grasped the whole philosMINING TOOLS. ophy of our national life. So the men of Marietta almost immediately picked out a site for their university, on the brow of a high hill rising just out of the embryo city. Game was still so plenty as to remove all fears of having to go hungry. In the course of a morning ramble up the Muskingum bottom, two men started four deer, saw ripe grapes hanging in profusion all about them, found some clam-beds at the bottom of the river, and killed a rattlesnake that lay coiled in their path. On looking about them, it was found that some thirteen families had already (in March) settled over against them,

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on the Kentucky shore. So Fort Harmar had already drawn to it these two small communities, as a fair promise for the future. Meantime, other emigrants had arrived, among whom came the governor and judges 5 of the new Territory. On July 2d the name of Marietta was formally adopted for the new city, in gratitude, we may suppose, for what France had done for them in the late war. The name is formed of parts of that of the unfortunate queen of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette. On the 4th the settlers celebrated the national anniversary, in great GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR. form, by a procession, patriotic speeches, and a barbecue. On the 17th of this month the territorial government was formally set in motion by Governor St. Clair. On the 26th the territory east of the Scioto, to the Pennsylvania line, a tract corresponding to that ceded by the previous Indian treaties, was made a county, by the name of Washington. 6 The first court of common pleas was opened with much solemnity,

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all the public officials attending, in Campus Martius, September 2d. As was to be expected of men who had been law-abiding citizens at home, everything had been done here with decency and in order. By the newcomers of this year, Marietta had increased her population to one hundred and thirty-two males, without counting the women and children. True, this was as yet but a handful, but the tread of coming millions was in the air. Never, perhaps, was there a similar movement more carefully planned or more thoroughly carried out. France, it is true, had made settlers of her disbanded soldiers in Canada, but not land-owners. Putnam and his associates not only did everything with that order which bespeaks a mature judgment, but with that intelligent caution also which would take no leap in the dark. From first to last the enterprise went on like clock-work. The men themselves could have no higher praise than their work gives them. Where, indeed, could better be found than these brave veterans of the Revolution, who had learned to know one another on the field of battle? Ohio should be proud of its ashes; for it is said that Washington County contains the graves of more officers of that army than any similar extent of ground in all the Union. ¹ WINTER QUARTERS were taken up at Simrel’s Ferry. ² THE M AYFLOWER was forty-six feet long and twelve wide, with a tight deckroof and sharp bow. Either sails or oars could be used. She afterward made trips between Marietta and up-river points, carrying passengers and supplies. Boats of this class were a feature of early navigation on the Ohio. Colonel Vigo’s keel-boat was furnished with a rudder, and rowed with ten oars. There was a cabin and awning. One that Manasseh

Cutler met on his way back was large enough for fifty soldiers to parade on her deck. ³ THE M O U N D S . “We went on to the high mound. There is a white-oak tree on the top, which General Putnam judged to be one hundred feet high. Trees on most of the works and particularly on Sacra Via. This is a regularly graded turnpike road, one hundred feet wide, with high parapets on each side, leading from the ruins on the plain to the Muskingum.”—Cutler’s Journal. An

CINCINNATI FOUNDED, 1788 official examination of all the ancient works was made at this time, in the presence of the governor.—Ibid. 4 C AMPUS M ARTIUS was a parallelogram, measuring seven hundred and twenty feet outside. At each corner there was a strong block-house, topped by a sentry-box. Between these were the dwellings. At the outer corner of each block-house there was a flanker raised on stout timbers, to rake the outer walls. Fort Harmar was a pentagonal work,

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covering about three-fourths of an acre. 5 THE JUDGES were Samuel Holden Parsons, of Connecticut; James Mitchell Varnum, of Rhode Island, and John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey. 6 WASHINGTON C OUNTY took in about everything east of the Scioto, or nearly half all Ohio. Its bounds were assumed to include what had passed to the United States by the Indian treaties thus far made.

CINCINNATI FOUNDED, 1788

W HILE on his way to Marietta, Manasseh Cutler had fallen in with John Cleves Symmes,¹ one of the newly appointed judges, whose jurisdiction covered many more square miles than people, and who was now going out to settle on his new purchase, situated between the two Miamis, or next west of the Virginia district, so extending the block of grants, already made, down to the extreme southwest corner of the State of Ohio. Symmes had bargained for this fine tract soon after the Ohio Company did for theirs, and although he had not yet paid for it, he had decided to lose no time in starting a town where Fort Finney stood, at the mouth of the Great Miami, reasoning, as people did before the days of steam railroads, that the mouth of every important river must of necessity be the key to all the country it drains. But while Symmes had secured for his larger enterprise the undoubted garden-spot of Ohio, he seems not to have known that he had chosen for himself a spot subject to sudden overflows of back-water from the Ohio. One large block of these Miami lands was bought up by one Benjamin Stites,² and another sold to a certain 11

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Matthias Denman,³ both of New Jersey. Symmes, Stites, and Denman were all busy during the summer of 1788, each with his own schemes, Symmes having reached the Ohio in August. Stites, however, was first on the spot. With similar views to those held by Symmes, he had picked out, for his settlement, the mouth of the Little Miami. Here, on November 28, 1788, he brought his company of settlers, who began building, after the Kentucky manner, what may be called a fortified village, to which Stites gave the rather ambitious name of Columbia. Denman’s parcel lay between the others, some seven miles below Stites’s, and twenty above Symmes’s, on two wooded terraces, rising like giant steps high above the Ohio, its freshets and its fogs, backed by a clump of hills and facing the mouth of the Licking, which it finely overlooked. Whether Denman really saw that two short portages would easily tap both Miami valleys, does not appear, but upon the face of things his choice certainly looks like a stroke of genius. Nothing stood on this truly regal spot except a solitary block-house, built by Clarke in 1780, when he marched against the Miami towns. Denman took in three partners, with whom he went to look over the ground. The better to do this, the party s e p a r a t e d . W h e n t h e y m e t a g a i n J o h n F i l s o n 4 was missing. Though it was never learned what became of him, his companions believed he had met with a violent death. Whether Denman knew it or not, his proposed town site lay on the great Miami war-path to Kentucky. To build there was much like bearding the lion. Already numberless forays had caused the place to be known on the border as the “Miami Slaughter-House,”—a name

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that Filson’s mysterious end must have brought sharply home to these explorers. The proprietors labored to produce a telling name for their town, but they only brought forth a piece of pedantic nonsense. They hit upon Losantiville, as conveying the idea of a town situated opposite to the Licking—a fact to which they attached much importance. Instead of being descriptive, it was merely a far-fetched riddle, not worth the guessing. No settlement was made at this time, but quite late in December 5 (24th), Israel Ludlow, with some twenty others, came and put up three or four log-cabins near Clarke’s old block-house. The first cabin stood on Front, east of and near Main Street. The work of surveying the town site then went on. What afterward became the spacious city landing, pressed by thousands of hurrying feet, was reserved to public uses; as also was the square inclosed between Fourth, Fifth, Main, and Walnut Streets. The two levels made the site an unusually advantageous one, both for building and drainage, to say nothing of looks. As the destroying axe hewed out more and more space, more cabins arose. Soon the original three had grown to twenty, and the handful of pioneers to eleven families, besides twenty-four single men. In fact, the hamlet might now lay claim to be called a village. These were but small beginnings, yet, strange to say, the race for pre-eminence was already on. Symmes’ hopes were early blasted. He had come down the Ohio in January (1789), on the top of a great and unusual freshet, to find his town site under water; so Symmes began another settlement (February, 1790), at North Bend, first called “Symmes’ City.”

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the fort for gardens. By November it was ready for its garrison, and late in December, Colonel, now General Harmar,7 occupied it with three hundred men. To the Ohio tribes every new fort was another key turned upon them. If they had been angry at the erection of two forts on the Muskingum, and one on the Miami, thereby shutting their old-travelled routes to the Ohio against them forever, they were furious at the erection of a fourth, exactly upon their great war-trail to the south. But posts so widely separated and so weakly manned could not prevent roving war-parties from slipping in between to attack emigrants passing down the Ohio. In the spring of 1788, no less than two hundred and fifty Kentucky arks had passed Pittsburg by actual count. They were being continually fired upon. To show just how dangerous the voyage had become, the escape of one of these boats will be presently related. There was one general outcry to have this bloody work stopped. We had only the skeleton of an army; the country was still poor; so it was decided to be cheaper to buy off the Indians than to fight them. To this end St. Clair hastened to the Wabash. On his way there he stopped at Losantiville to erect the Miami settlements into a new county called Hamilton, in honor of Washington’s able Secretary of the Treasury. At this time, too, the name of Losantiville was changed to Cincinnati, 8 as a soldier’s tribute to the military order of veteran officers of the Revolution. No other, indeed, could half so well have fixed the fact of Ohio’s being the soldiers’ State in history. The name of Cincinnati ever recalls who were the real founders of Ohio. St. Clair found the Miamis sulky. It was evident

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they meant mischief. And as they stood aloof, he had to make all the advances himself. In vain he first tried to wheedle them with fair words. They mockingly said he talked with a forked tongue. When he told them that since the United States had come into the sovereignty of all their country, they should now look upon him as their father, they haughtily retorted that not he but the English captain, at Detroit, was their father, “since he threw down their French father.” St. Clair then tempted them with presents. They spurned all his offers, saying, just as the Trojans once said of the Greeks, that the Americans were most to be dreaded when bringing gifts. As a last resort, St. Clair told them that if they wanted war they should have it. This was just what they meant to have. They, therefore, told his messenger to go home, which was equivalent to giving an ambassador his passports, or throwing St. Clair’s defiance back in his teeth. After forming a county called St. Clair (April, 1790), out of what is now almost the entire State of Illinois, the governor hurried home to prepare for war. A little later (June 20th), all the middle region, including substantially the State of Indiana, was organized as Knox County, with Vincennes as the county-seat. So the Territory was now as good as covered by fixed political divisions, a measure of some advantage, certainly, in establishing the form of law where before there had been little or none. Reading the signs truly, St. Clair knew that his main reliance must be upon the Kentuckians for an offensive campaign, as his regular troops would be but a mouthful for the united Indians. But the Kentuckians themselves were also being threatened with war by the Cherokees, and war was only averted by the iron firmness of

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Colonel Isaac Shelby, who defied the Cherokees in their own council-lodge, telling them that a thousand Kentuckians, with horses all shod, stood ready to march against them at a moment’s warning. “Too many, too many!” cried the war-chiefs, wisely foreseeing that the battle must go against them in the end. Meantime, other settlements had been making by the Ohio Company, or its agents, at Belpré, Newbury, and Gallipolis 9—the latter by French emigrants exclusively. On the Virginia tract one also had started up at Massieville (Manchester); 10 and on the Miami Purchase at South Bend, at Dunlap’s Station (Colerain) on the Great Miami, and at Covalt’s on the Little Miami. All these were fortified villages or stations, like those of the ancient peoples whose perishing strongholds dot the land, and like them show that in all ages man’s greatest enemy has been his brother man. ¹ JOHN CLEVES SYMMES had been a member of Congress, judge and chiefjustice of New Jersey, before going west. Notwithstanding he was considered an eminent jurist, he conducted his land business so loosely as to give rise to much vexatious litigation over his titles. His daughter married General W. H. Harrison. ² BENJAMIN STITES first knew of the Miami Country through going there in pursuit of some horse-thieves. He went back to New Jersey, where he met Symmes, whom Stites soon persuaded to join in his schemes. Attention is called to the fact that Jonathan Dayton was associated with Stites and Symmes in their land operations. See note 1. ³ MATTHIAS DENMAN went back to New Jersey after getting his scheme started. 4 J O H N F IL S ON had been a Pennsylvania schoolmaster before emigrating to Kentucky, where he took up surveying.

On this account he was intrusted with the drawing of the town plat of Cincinnati (Losantiville), for which he took Philadelphia as his model, street names and all. This example was followed in many Western cities. 5 L ATE IN D ECEMBER . The actual date is in doubt, though the 24th seems to have been adopted by general consent, that being the day on which the party mentioned in the text left Maysville for Losantiville. What seems strange is that the participants were themselves unable to fix the date accurately while living. 6 FORT WASHINGTON was built upon much the same plan as Fort Harmar, of hewed logs. All these forts embodied the most simple rules of fortification, wood taking the place of stone in their construction. 7 G ENERAL J OSIAH H ARMAR had served throughout the Revolution. Upon the disbandment of the army he remained

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in the service, one regiment (1st United States) having been enlisted for frontier duty. When the army was increased he was promoted to brigadier. 8 C INCINNATI . This name was adopted in honor of the illustrious Roman Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, who lived in the fifth century B . C . The payment of a heavy fine for his son obliged him to turn farmer. Thrice called to lead the armies of Rome, he as often returned

to his plough when the danger was over. Hence the appositeness of the name for men in like circumstances. 9 GALLIPOLIS was settled by a French colony, who had been induced to emigrate by Joel Barlow, agent at Paris for the Scioto Company, an offshoot of the Ohio Company 10 M ANCHESTER was founded by Nathaniel Massie, later a founder also of Chillicothe.

A COMBAT ON THE OHIO

W E have just said that the Ohio was always travelled at the risk of life or limb. At every crook and turn, some outlying war-party lurked in ambush; while from the nearest cliff a watchful sentinel stood ready to signal the approach of white men from afar. Not until the river gives up its dead will all the horrid story be known. Captain William Hubbel’s party, numbering nine men, three women, and eight children, were on their way to Limestone, now Maysville, Ky., in a flat-boat. Well knowing their danger, they were keeping a sharp lookout. One foggy morning, just at the gray dawn of day, someone hailed them from the shore, asking to be taken on board. It was an old trick of the Indians, to decoy the whites to their destruction, so Hubbel quietly sent his men from their oars to their rifles, while the women and children were told to lie flat on their faces, on the cabin floor, and keep as still as death. Nobody answered the hail, but all stood anxiously waiting to see what would happen next.

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They did not have long to wait. Soon, through the thick mist overhanging the river, several canoes were seen swiftly and silently paddling toward them. The canoes were full of painted savages. Hubbel immediately ordered all the tables, chairs, and boxes, cumbering the deck, to be thrown overboard. He had made up his mind that the fight would be a hot one, and was going into it with plenty of elbow-room. As soon as the Indians were within good gunshot they stopped paddling just long enough to let fly a rattling volley, by which two men were hit. They then shot ahead out of the smoke, taking positions at the bow, the stern, and alongside the clumsy ark, from which they began raking her in every part, at close range. The boatmen sharply returned the fire, though they were but seven sound men against four or five times as many. However, the stout sides of the ark were a better protection than the light bark of the canoes, if the whites could have kept themselves covered, which, of course could not be done, as the Indians fired from all sides at once. In a few minutes, Hubbel himself received a shot through the arm. Like hungry wolves worrying a wounded bison, the enboldened redskins now pushed in to finish the fight at close quarters. One canoe grappled with the ark’s bow, several of the Indians sprang to the deck, tomahawk in hand, and already had raised their yell of triumph, when, like a wounded lion, Hubbel rushed upon them, with a pistol in each hand. The foremost Indian fell back, with a bullet in his body. Without stopping to see the effect of his second shot, Hubbel flung away his empty pistols, snatched up a cordwood stick from the deck, and using that as a club laid about him so furiously, that the

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Indians were glad to leap into their canoes, and sheer off as quickly as possible. But in this hand-to-hand scuffle Hubbel had been wounded again; and he had now only four men left unhurt. They, however, undauntedly kept up the fight, choosing rather to be all killed fighting, than to die a lingering death by torture, if taken. After their repulse the Indians kept up a dropping fire, cleverly timing their own movements with that of the ark, as she drifted helplessly on with the current. But whenever one of them half rose up to take aim, all the whites would fire at him at once, seldom failing to bring down their man. In this way, the Indians were kept at bay, until they gave up the fight, and sheered off for the shore, fairly beaten. As the last canoe swung round, so as to present a fair mark, Hubbel fired the last shot at the Indian paddling in her stern. The well-aimed bullet tumbled the redskin into the bottom of the canoe, either dead or badly wounded. While the whites were rejoicing over their narrow escape, the treacherous current was all the time setting them toward the shore, and presently the bullets were again coming thick and fast at them from the bushes. Two men were sent to the oars, but all their efforts could not urge the unwieldy hulk out of gunshot; and all had nearly given themselves up for lost, when the current as suddenly carried the ark out into the middle of the river. As soon as they were safe again, the survivors gave three hearty cheers for their victory. It was dearly bought. Out of nine men who began the

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combat, three were killed outright, and four wounded. None of the women or children, however, had received any hurt, except one little fellow, who bravely kept the knowledge of his wounds to himself, until the fight was over. He then asked to have a ball taken from his scalp. After this piece of lead had been removed, the brave lad held up his arm to show where another bullet had shattered the elbow, leaving a piece of the bone hanging to it by the skin. When his frightened mother asked him why he had not said a word of this, the young hero proudly replied, “Because the captain told us to keep quiet, and I thought you would make a noise if you knew of it.”

THE STRUGGLE FOR POSSESSION, 1790-1791

F INDING that the Indians were so bent on war, St. Clair wisely decided to strike first. The heart of the Indian league was the Miami villages,¹ lying about the head of the Maumee. True, they were a long way off, yet unless they could be made to feel that nowhere would they be safe from punishment, their enmity would continue unabated. For this point, then, General Harmar marched with something over fourteen hundred men, late in September (1790), his main purpose being to cripple the Indians by destroying their villages and harvests; or as we should now say, by making a raid on a large scale. Harmar was about turning back after doing considerable damage of this sort, when, a little below the site of Fort Wayne, Little Turtle, the Miami war-chief, suddenly fell upon one of the out-parties, cut it to pieces, and sent the survivors pell-mell back to the camp.

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This disaster so stirred the army that, against his own judgment, Harmar sent off an expedition to surprise the Miami villages, by a forced march. Officers and men were only too eager to wipe away the disgrace that the army had just sustained. Thinking Harmar to be in full retreat, the Indians had

HARMAR’S DEFEAT; VICINITY OF FORT WAYNE.

[1, Arrival at the ford; 2, first detachment stopped; 3, second detachment held at the ford.]

left the Maumee ford² unguarded; so that, strangely enough, the Americans reached it undiscovered. The enemy’s principal encampment lay only a little way beyond, in a bend of the Maumee. To make the most of their advantage, the assailants now thought it best to divide their forces, letting one body make a wide circuit, in order to gain the rear of the camp, and so cut

PITTSBURGH IN 1790, MILITARY DEPOT FOR THE OHIO

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off escape that way, while the other should cross over and attack it in front. This plan would bring the Indians between two fires. This important advantage was thrown away by the imprudence of a militiaman, who, upon seeing a stray Indian, fired at him, so putting the unsuspecting foe on the alert. In an instant the Indians were seen running in every direction. The surprise having thus failed, the plan of attack was completely turned against the Americans. Little Turtle now threw himself between the two detachments, first driving one back and then the other, so that only by the most desperate sort of fighting could the remnants of the two bodies get together again for a hurried flight. Only half of those who went into this action came out of it alive, as the badly wounded were tomahawked on the spot. For a wonder, many of the Indians now fought on horseback, as well as the whites, from whom, in fact, they had learned the art, as well as stolen the horses. They rode like the Arabs, and made a much more fierce and warlike appearance even, in their war-paint, feathers, and bells as they came charging down upon their adversaries, shouting like madmen, and looking like demons. Thus ended Harmar’s inglorious attempt to chastise the hostile tribes in their own stronghold. St. Clair³ then raised a second army of two thousand men, with which he in turn marched against Little Turtle, early in September (1791). To say that he had worked early and late to get his forces in the field would be only giving him his due. He had even been to Philadelphia to consult with President Washington, who, in taking leave of him, had as impressively warned St. Clair against

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a surprise as he had done Braddock before him. Possibly that terrible disaster was yet fresh in his mind. In a campaign of this sort, where there were absolutely no roads, one great difficulty consisted in keeping communication open as the army marched on. It is a very old maxim that every army marches on its stomach. Unless, then, St. Clair could keep the road open behind him his army could not be fed; and if it could not be fed, it would have to halt, perhaps retreat. Twenty-four miles up the Miami, St. Clair, therefore, halted to build Fort Hamilton; forty miles farther on he built Fort Jefferson. This fort was six miles south of Greenville. Having thus guarded his line of supply or retreat, as the case might be, he pushed on toward the enemy again. November 3d the army went into camp 4 on the banks of a small stream, militia in front, regular troops in the rear. In this order the militia would have to meet the first onset. The army was considerably weakened by insubordination, and still more so from a want of confidence in St. Clair, whom all knew to be physically unfit for active command. It was a terrible mistake, terribly paid for. There was firing along the front all night, just enough to keep the army on the alert; so the men lay on their arms, fully expecting an attack to begin as soon as it was light. There were other signs abroad that a prudent commander would fail to heed at his peril. St. Clair was not heedless; he well knew what ought to be done; yet a general who was so stiff and sore with the gout as to have to be helped on and off his horse, was not the man to be beating up the wild woods, searching for wild Indians, from a camp-bed.

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As we have just said, the army lay on its arms expecting an attack. It was an Indian war-custom always to attack at break of day, on the theory that drowsy sentinels make a sleepy camp. At about midnight, therefore, the army was quietly drawn up, under arms, to await the passing of the critical moment. At the same time, scouts were sent out to scour the woods in front. As they reported no Indians near, at daybreak (November 4th), the men were dismissed to get their breakfasts. A light snow had fallen during the night, the morning was chilly, and the men were so worn out with marching and loss of sleep that most of them had thrown themselves down upon the ground to get a little rest. Others were dispersed around the camp-fires. While vigilance was thus relaxed, the enemy burst upon the camp like a tornado. In a moment the dusky woods around were all ablaze with the flashes of musketry. To the noise of the explosions was added the hideous yells issuing from two thousand eager throats, as like leaping panthers the furious savages came rushing down upon St. Clair’s first line. With this first furious onset that line went to pieces. As the bewildered soldiers of the second line sprang from the ground, they saw the Indians, with their bloody tomahawks and death-dealing knives, butchering the flying militia. In another moment fugitives and pursuers came down upon them in a heap together. There was no time to form. In squads or fragments the regular troops got together as best they could and fought as men do for their lives. They even succeeded in driving the screaming Indians back to cover, so securing a moment’s respite in which to form in some kind of order. The battle soon began again with tenfold fury. 12

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It was only the panther drawing back for a more terrible and decisive leap. Seemingly at one and the same moment, the most deadly fire began again all around the camp. It was terribly fatal, yet the men had to stand and take it, like living targets, because the wily enemy kept close to cover. They were then ordered to charge with the bayonet. Again, and again, the troops drove the Indians from their hiding-places, only to fall back again for want of support, with thinner and thinner ranks. St. Clair behaved like a hero; three horses were shot under him; still the feeble old man undauntedly rode in the thickest of the fight; though at length the case became so desperate that, to save the gallant little remnant of his army, he had to order a last, a hopeless charge. How well they had fought after the first panic will be better understood when it is known that more men fell here than in any battle of the Revolutionary War. But as regards fighting the Indians, it really seems as if nothing had been learned and nothing forgotten. It was only by repeated defeats that we were taught at last how to conquer them. Among the many acts of heroism shown on that fatal field, the last was by no means least. When the badly wounded men found that they were to be left behind, they begged their comrades, as a last favor, to load their muskets for them for a last shot; and their dropping shots, heard in the distance, after all fighting was over, told the fugitives that more than one savage was being made to bite the dust. St. Clair rode away from the field mounted upon a pack-horse. The men threw away their guns to run the faster, and did not stop till they got to Fort Jefferson,

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twenty-nine miles distant. At this place they met a reinforcement coming up. In truth, St. Clair’s army had been the same as destroyed. Nine hundred men killed and wounded, most of the cannon, all of the baggage, provisions, and ammunition lost!—there had been no such rout since Braddock’s Day. This battle 5 left the Indians free to overrun the Territory at will. It was even doubtful if the posts on the Ohio could now be held against them. Indeed, nothing could have been more cruelly decisive. Ill news is said to travel fast, yet it took more than a month for this to reach Philadelphia. The disaster was felt even to the farthest corner of the Union. So complete an overthrow, so great a loss of life, such a deep disgrace had never before befallen American soldiers. Deep, therefore, was the indignation everywhere poured out on the head of the unlucky St. Clair. Even Washington himself is said to have lost all his self-command on hearing the news, giving utterance to broken words of mingled grief and wrath. 6 Of course an instant stop was put to emigration. ¹ MIAMI VILLAGES, with French trading-posts in their vicinity, are referred to in earlier chapters, See pp. 25, 26 note. ² M A U M E E F O R D, the place of Harmar’s defeat, is about half a mile below Fort Wayne, Ind. ³ ST. CLAIR owed his appointment to this command to the fact that he was the senior officer of our very small army, as well as governor of the Northwest Territory. 4 T HE CAMP was in the southwest corner of Mercer County; its site is the same as that of Fort Recovery. See maps. 5 T HIS BATTLE; the newspapers of the

day contain much about it; especially those of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, where St. Clair’s regular troops were mostly recruited; so carrying the disaster home to the farthest corner of the Union. Johonnot’s N a r r a t i v e , Greenfield, Mass., 1816, is that of a soldier who was in the battle. 6 T HE STORY of Washington’s having fallen into a paroxysm of rage, in which he stormed at St. Clair in unmeasured terms, is in all the histories. It originated with Tobias Lear, Washington’s private secretary. In refutation of it see Moore’s Libels of Washington (privately printed), New York, 1889.

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WAYNE’S CAMPAIGN, 1794

A FTER the first outburst of sorrow and mortification was over, Washington looked about him for a general whom he could trust. His choice fell upon Wayne—“Mad Anthony”—the Ney of the Revolutionary army, and the

UNITED STATES INDIAN PEACE COMMISSIONERS, 1793.

[1, Timothy Pickering; 2, Benjamin Lincoln; 3, Beverly Randolph.]

idol of his soldiers. Wayne had said to Washington in almost so many words, “I am the very man you want.”¹ These wary and experienced captains knew that whoever should beat Little Turtle² must be no ordinary man. The campaign now begun was one of the most deliber-

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ate on record, and it shows us how deeply the lesson taught by two defeats had sunk in the minds of Washington and Wayne. It took Wayne two years to form an army capable, in his opinion, of fighting the savages on equal terms. Not until he had drilled it to resist every possible form of attack would he give the order to march. In the year 1792 Kentucky came into the Union as a State.³ In November, 1793, the first newspaper of the Northwest Territory was issued by William Maxwell, at

BRITISH OFFICERS AND INDIAN ORATOR, 1793.

Cincinnati. It was called the Centinel of the Northwest Territory. While getting ready for war, efforts 4 were still making for peace. They failed because the Indians would abate nothing of their old demands. With them it was always the Ohio or nothing. So peace was not to be. Wayne first moved in October (1793), six miles beyond Fort Jefferson. He had three thousand six hundred men. Here he halted to build Fort Greenville; and from here a strong detachment pushed on as far as St. Clair’s battle-

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ground, on which they built Fort Recovery. In these two posts the army then wintered. Wayne had thus got back all that St. Clair had lost without firing a shot. Thus to have brought the army safely up to within striking distance of the enemy was much, especially when that enemy was Little Turtle. So far Wayne had made no mistakes, but from this time forth he knew that he must manœuvre to fight, and the way he did it stamps him as a general of the first rank. Little Turtle supposed Wayne would attack him at the Miami villages. His forces were, therefore, being held in readiness at that point. Nothing was farther from Wayne’s thoughts. The campaign opened late. Cutting roads and bringing up supplies made it midsummer (1794), before Wayne was ready to move on again; but it was Little Turtle who forced the fighting. Chafing at the delay, the subtle chief made one of his sudden onslaughts on Fort Recovery. It was gallantly repulsed before Wayne could get up to the aid of the garrison. But he was now ready to move on. Instead, however, of striking off direct for the St. Mary’s, Wayne merely looked one way and marched another. He turned away in the opposite direction, to the Auglaize, marched down this stream to the Maumee, and there, in the very heart of the Miami country, built Fort Defiance. 5 Little Turtle’s position was thus completely turned, and the Miami country cut in two. But Wayne had still another object in view. He knew that the British had lately built a fort at the Maumee rapids below, designed, no doubt, as a rallying-point for the hostile tribes. His present position was, therefore, a strong check upon that secret enemy, under a friendly flag.

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had to deal with. So far he had given them no chance to lay one of their murderous traps for him, as they had for Harmar and St. Clair. One day their spies would report that the Black Snake, as they called Wayne, was cutting a road in one direction; on the next in another. So they were kept guessing. But now that he was firmly seated in the very heart of their country, Little Turtle for one was inclined to hearken to him. Said the chief: “We have beaten the enemy twice, under separate commanders. We cannot expect the same good fortune always to attend us. The Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps. Night and day are alike to him, so that during all the time he has been marching on our villages we have never once been able to surprise him.” The general voice, however, favored giving Wayne battle, and it was so determined. The Indians felt confident of beating Wayne as they had done Harmar and St. Clair before him. They had seen “Mad Anthony” manœuvre, but they had not yet seen him fight. Finding that the Indians had drawn their forces together, between him and the rapids, Wayne marched down the west bank of the Maumee to attack them. The enemy had chosen well their ground. 6 It was an opening torn in the forest by a tornado, which had left the ground strewed with uprooted trees and bristling with their outstretched branches in every direction—a natural breastwork, defended by natural abatis. N o horsemen could ride through it; infantry could only pick their way under the fire of a thousand rifles. In this natural stronghold no less than two thousand warriors lay flat on the ground, waiting for Wayne to make his appearance, on the morning of August 20th. To enter

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it was like marching into the very jaws of death. But there was no other way of finding the enemy than by sacrificing some brave men. As usual, the enemy was felt before being seen. When Wayne’s vanguard came out of the woods into the clearing, the rifles began to crack on all sides of them, and the men to fall fast. The vanguard therefore fell back upon the supports. These were already formed, at the first sound of the firing. Instantly, Wayne ordered his whole line forward. The men caught his spirit and were all fire. As the bugles rang out the charge, the eager infantry sprang upon the enemy with the bayonet. That was the order. There was to be no firing until the enemy were unearthed. Scrambling helter-skelter over the fallen trees the Americans fell upon the crouching warriors with the cold steel. A swarm of tawny redskins rose up from the ground, and fled before them. Then and not till then did the soldiers deliver their fire, right and left, with destructive effect. Again they pushed on, giving the enemy no time to reload or rally for another stand. Soon, in every direction, they were being forced back by the impetuous onset of Wayne’s veterans. In the rear, the men of the second line were madly racing after the first. They never caught up with it. The battle was won without them. Even the horse had found a way round the enemy’s flank in time to do deadly work with their sabres. In every quarter of the field they could be seen riding down flying savages. Scores were trampled under foot by the eager horsemen. After the chase had been kept up for two miles, a recall was sounded. The charge had been so decisive, the pursuit so swift, that half of the army could not get near the enemy.

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The Indians could not rally again. Wayne had dealt them a death-blow, and they felt it as such. With unsparing hand he now destroyed their ripening corn-fields. When he had turned the smiling valley around him into

WAYNE’S CAMPAIGN AND EARLY OHIO SETTLEMENTS.

a waste place, he marched slowly up to the forks of the Maumee, and there, on the site of the great Indian hold, he built Fort Wayne, the thing that St. Clair had planned to do, but so signally failed in.

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The ground where the battle was fought was ever after known as The Fallen Timbers. A fair city has risen on the site of Fort Wayne. With a chain of forts, stretching from the Ohio nearly to Lake Erie, the hostile tribes, east and west, were as good as cut off from each other. They were doomed to a still further isolation by the evacuation of the British posts on the lakes, soon after; so that, in reality, their last hope had now perished. The restoring to us of our own frontier was, perhaps, hastened by Wayne’s victorious campaign. His parting words to Washington had been no idle boast, for, in truth, he had shown himself the very man for the crisis. ¹ WORDS TO THIS EFFECT are found in General Knox’s correspondence. Knox was then Secretary of War. ² L ITTLE T URTLE won high praise among military men for his generalship. Knox said of him, “Little Turtle is certainly a very remarkable man.” In a conversation with some Quakers, the chief very earnestly said that “the liquor which the whites bring into our country is more to be feared than gun or tomahawk. There are more of us dead since the Treaty of Greenville than we lost by the six years’ war before.” See an able speech of his in American State Papers (Ind.), i., 53. ³ KENTUCKY came into the Union only after long and vexatious delays, partly arising from her relations to Virginia, partly from the unsettled political conditions under which the United States themselves then labored. The term of

years covered by these efforts for admission is memorable for the rise of a disunion feeling, growing out of Spain’s unfriendly action in closing New Orleans to American products. See Brown’s Political Beginnings of Kentucky; The Making of the Great West, p. 171. The act admitting Kentucky passed February 4, 1791, but was not to take effect till June 1, 1792. The State constitution permitted negro slavery. Isaac Shelby was elected first governor. 4 President Washington sent a commission to the frontier with power to treat, but the Indian ultimatum was always the Ohio or war, so it was time thrown away. 5 F ORT D EFIANCE began the present city of Defiance. 6 W AYNE ’ S BATTLE - GROUND was at Presquisle (not to be confounded with the French name for Erie, Pa.).

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THE TREATY OF GREENVILLE, 1795 “The pen is mightier than the sword”

A F T E R putting his troops into winter quarters, along his fortified line, so as to be ready to check any attempt to break through it, Wayne began feeling the temper of the defeated tribes, with a view to peace. It resulted that the next summer (1795), about all of them met Wayne in council at Greenville, to hear what he had to propose. There were present Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies from the river St. Joseph and Lake Huron, Miamis, Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, and some few Iroquois of Sandusky. Together, they represented the strength of the still formidable confederacy. Upon rising to speak to them, Wayne held up, so all could see it, a carved image of the arms of the United States. He did this because he knew that with an Indian everything had its symbol, and every symbol its meaning. Pointing, therefore, to the eagle, seen clutching the sheaf of arrows with one talon, and with the other the olive branch, Wayne gave them to understand that war or peace now rested with them. The council continued its sittings for several weeks. This chief had to be won over, or that tribe conciliated, or the other condoled with. Finally, on August 3d, an agreement was reached by which the Indians ceded some twenty-five thousand square miles of territory, besides sixteen separate tracts reserved to as many forts—hence known as military reservations. After the treaty had been twice read, and every ar-

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ticle fully explained by Wayne himself, he then asked, “You Chippewas, do you approve of these articles and are you prepared to sign them?” (A unanimous answer, “Yes”.) He then asked the same question, in turn, of every nation there present. As each was called upon by name it gave the same answer. All having agreed, and the treaty being signed, a copy was given to the representative of each nation, after which gifts were distributed among them, and the council broke up, with every mark of mutual good feeling. By this treaty the Indians had been pushed back from the Ohio, nearly to the divide separating the waters flowing to the Ohio from those running to Lake Erie. Or, if the Western Reserve be included, more than two-thirds of the State of Ohio was now thrown open to settlement. Wayne had done his part equally well as soldier or diplomat.

THIRD EPOCH

PROGRESS “The strongest nation is that which counts the most robust men, interested in its defence, animated by its spirit, and possessing the feeling of its destiny.”—B URET .

FALL OF THE IROQUOIS, 1779

now seen why westward emigration first folHAVING lowed the Ohio Valley, even though mountains stood in the way, it is found that, with the return of peace, travel immediately flowed back into its natural channels again. War had forced the opening of a new route; peace gave us back the old again, in this way. Before the Revolution, there were no thoroughfares through middle and western New York, save the old, well-beaten Iroquois trails—from village to village. White settlements extended no farther West than Rome, where all travel turned aside to reach the lake at Oswego. This was the great route to the West; and it also was the route by which the infant commerce of the West reached tide-water. It had only been established by leave of the Iroquois. The Revolution changed all that. Among other results it brought about the utter downfall of the great Iroquois confederacy itself, in a way no one had foreseen or expected. It so happened that when the colonies went to war with England, these Iroquois took sides against them, as rebels against their lawful king; and so throughout all that long contest the colonies had no worse foes than their old-time friends of the great league, who nearly depopulated the Mohawk Valley, and quite desolated that of the Upper Susquehanna. Their many cruelties had, in turn, provoked the invasion and conquest of their own country by an American 13

Iroquois league at last crumbled away.

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lowly cabins gave little hint of the coming metropolis. But Buffalo was none the less begun.

THE WESTERN RESERVE, 1795

I N the year 1792 Connecticut gave a half million acres, situated at the west end of her great tract on Lake Erie, to those of her citizens whose homes had been burned by the British during the Revolutionary War. Hence this grant was after known as the Firelands. A little later (1795), the rest of the tract was sold outright to a land company, formed much on the plan of that at Marietta, and the proceeds turned into a school fund. This company, like the other, was vested with no political powers whatever. The next year (1796) Moses Cleaveland¹ was sent out to Ohio, as agent and director for the company. He took with him a party of surveyors to lay off the lands, besides two families to care for their wants there, the whole making fifty-two persons, none of whom were actual emigrants. The route they took foreshadows the new ways of travel, or old ways resumed. Part crossed New York overland to Buffalo, going by way of Canandaigua,² and part went by water, via Oswego, to Niagara, and thence to Buffalo. At Niagara they found the fort in charge of United States troops; at Buffalo they found a tavern.³ At this place Cleaveland stopped to hold a council with the remnant of the Iroquois, who, even in their fallen estate, still asserted their right of eminent domain over lands in the Reserve just as haughtily as ever. To deny it would be to invite their enmity. Cleaveland, therefore,

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quieted them by the payment of $2500 in cash, two beefcattle, and one hundred gallons of whiskey. This done, his party embarked for the Reserve. Their first landing was made July 4, 1796, at the mouth of Conneaut Creek, 4 a t t h e e x t r e m e n o r t h e a s t corner of Ohio, and, like true Americans, their very first act was to celebrate the double event with patriotic speeches and the best banquet that their humble means could provide. Earlier by a year (1795), Charles M. Reed had built him a log-cabin at Presquisle, about half way between Buffalo and Conneaut, thus restoring that once important point to a place on the map, and also laying the foundation for the now thriving city of Erie.5 This year (1796), the United States were building a new fort there, in room of the old French work, which was now being demolished, and a town laid out on its site. From Conneaut, where they built their first storehouse, and left a family in charge, the surveyors pushed out into the wild lands of the Reserve. The old Indian trails, sure forerunners of future commerce, all led up from the south toward the Cuyahoga, down whose sluggish stream many a fur-laden canoe had paddled in bygone times, out into the great lake, to shape its venturous course for Niagara or Detroit. The main thoroughfare and best harbor of the Reserve being thus clearly established beforehand, the proper place for its chief town was quickly decided to be at the mouth of the Cuyahoga; and it was accordingly there laid out, on the flat brow of a gravelly bluff, lifted high above the lake. To this new-born town the name of Cleveland was given, in honor of the leader of the expedition. Its real founder, however, was that unknown red

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man who first discerned its utility as a point of departure for the Ohio or the far East. While the main body wintered at Conneaut, one family (that of Job P. Stiles) was left in charge of the storehouse erected at Cleveland. The winter at Conneaut proved one of much suffering to these unseasoned pioneers, who were driven to sore shifts to live, their supplies having fallen short of their actual wants. Hence these people are not unfrequently spoken of as the Pilgrims of Ohio, from the trials of their first winter. In June, 1797, James Kingsbury6 and Elijah Gunn7 brought their families from Conneaut to Cleveland. They were soon joined here by Lorenzo Carter and Esek Hawley, with their families. A few others dropped in from time to time, but the increase was slow, compared with that of the Marietta colony. These first comers maintained themselves with difficulty, though perhaps their worst enemy was the fever and ague, to which they mostly were utter strangers. It was, in fact, the bane of all the early settlements of the West. When the newcomers became too enfeebled to help themselves, the Indians of the neighborhood would often bring them presents of game, or by other friendly acts alleviate their distresses. Otherwise they must have starved. The nearest point to which these people could look for aid was Presquisle or Erie. Many a weary journey was made through winter snows and trackless forests, ninety miles there and ninety back, to get even a bushel of corn; while the traveller’s way was often beset by wolves, only a little more hungry than himself. At Erie, the old route to the Ohio, which had been first opened to keep the English out, was now being put to use in bringing settlers from Pennsylvania to the vir.

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gin lands of the lake shore, thus tapping the stream of travel, setting so strongly into the Ohio Valley, in favor of the more northern line. These were indeed but small beginnings (one man here and another there), yet now from Buffalo to Cleveland, and from Pittsburg to Erie, the landmarks had been permanently set, to be known of all men, which, if being travelled mostly on foot, and at the risk of life or limb, should witness the coming of a greater army, and a greater commerce, than the world had ever dreamed of, in an ever increasing tide. At first settlers moved slowly into the Reserve, because the title of the State of Connecticut was not considered as good as that of the United States. Every new settler wants his title guaranteed by the whole nation. With no less will he ever be content. To remove this difficulty, Congress authorized the President to make out a patent, under the seal of the United States, confirming the title of purchasers up to that time, provided that Connecticut should surrender all claim to jurisdiction west of her own boundary. This was done May 30, 1800. In this same year (1800), the Reserve was organized as a county by the name of Trumbull, for Jonathan Trumbull, the old war-governor of Connecticut, to whom Washington himself had given the nickname, since become national, of Brother Jonathan. ¹ MOSES C LEAVELAND , general of Connecticut militia, born in Canterbury, Conn., 1754, died there in 1806. Leaving Yale to take part in the Revolutionary War, he re-entered and took his degree in 1777, adopted the law as his profession, served in the legislature and militia, and finally took charge of opening the Western Reserve, as related in the text. The family name of Cleaveland,

which is still represented in New England, is altered in the spelling of that of the city he founded. ² BY WAY OF C ANANDAIGUA was the old Indian trail from the Mohawk, connecting the heads of the lakes of central New York, which eventually became the travelled route to Lake Erie and the West. From Canandaigua a branch road struck off to a stream falling into

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Lake Ontario, at Irondequoit Bay, some seventy miles from Niagara. A tradingpost was established there by Governor Burnet, in 1721, to divert the Indian trade from the French at Niagara. See Whittlesey’s Early History of Cleveland. ³ A TAVERN kept by John Palmer, in 1795, on the Terrace, nearly opposite Exchange Street. When it was full, guests were allowed to sleep on the floor. 4 C ONNEAUT C REEK was first christened Port Independence by the surveying party on account of the day.

5 C ITY OF E RIE. See Magazine of Western History, vol. v., No. 3, for a fuller account. 6 J AMES K INGSBURY was the first adventurer who came to the Reserve on his own account. He got to Conneaut soon after the surveyors did. His wife came with him. 7 E LIJAH G UNN and his wife took charge of the storehouse at Conneaut, facetiously called Stowe Castle, from the commissary of the party.

OHIO BECOMES A STATE, 1803

T H E results to Ohio of Wayne’s treaty were instant as well as far-reaching. With the surrender of Detroit to us, Michigan first came under the flag (July 11, 1796), and was attached to the Northwest Territory as Wayne¹ County. Not only on the Western Reserve, but at the south and east also, there was renewed activity, with returning confidence; so that the year 1796 marks an important era in the history of Ohio. We have looked at the small beginnings on the Reserve; we will now see what was going on elsewhere. First (April, 1796), sixteen persons began a town on the Miami tract, called Dayton,² for Jonathan Dayton, a distinguished veteran of the Revolution. The same spring (1796), Nathaniel Massie led a party of Kentucky emigrants, who were seeking for new homes on free soil, into the interior of the Virginia Military District. They pitched upon a beautiful spot, near the junction of Paint Creek with the Scioto, laid out their town there, and named it Chillicothe.³ An important step, in its way, was now taken by the General Government. To facilitate access to the Terri-

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tory a road was begun this year (1796), across southern Ohio, from Wheeling to Maysville, Ky. It was an early declaration of the right, on the part of the United States, to make what presently assumed the name, and aroused much opposition also, as “internal improvements.” 4 This subject will be referred to later on. Ebenezer Zane, 5 the contractor, was to have certain

OLD COURT-HOUSE, CHILLICOTHE, O .

Ohio lands in payment. His road, long known as Zane’s Trace, was at first only a bridle-path, made passable at wet crossings by laying down saplings, quaintly called there “corduroy.” Gradually widened to admit wagons, this primitive road became the great post-route between Washington and Kentucky; better still, it gave life to many thriving settlements.

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For instance, on his own grant, at the crossing of the Muskingum, Zane and John McIntire began building Zanesville (1799). New Lancaster was also started by them the next year (at the Hockhocking), mostly with emigrants from Pennsylvania. Assured progress is now best evinced in the rapid steps taken toward political sovereignty. No sooner did the people begin to feel their power, than straightway they resolved to assert it, partly on their own behalf, partly to make themselves heard in the national councils, and their votes felt in the national elections, in the issues of which they had a deep interest. The Territory being found (1798) to have five thousand white inhabitants, the right to hold a general election for members of an assembly was carried into effect. The members-elect of this first legislative body met at Cincinnati, in September, 1799. It contained some very able men, who have left their impress on the history of the West, foremost among whom, perhaps, was William Henry Harrison, already known as a rising man, and now sent as a delegate to Congress by this first assembly. This action was but the prelude to one still more important. The people were quite as broadly divided on national politics as on local issues. One party ardently desired admission into the Union; another, at the head of which was Governor St. Clair, as ardently opposed admission. The issue was joined upon the question of changing the boundaries of the unborn States, as prescribed by the Ordinance of 1787. Agitation began on these lines, the opponents of admission trying to attain their end by getting the old west line set aside, and a new one drawn at the Scioto. They insisted that the

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time had not yet come for admission; that they were too much scattered, too poor—in fine, unprepared to assume the important functions of a sovereign State. They were unsuccessful. By an act of Congress (May, 1800) the Territory was divided by the Greenville Treaty line, from the Ohio north to Fort Recovery, thence due north again through Michigan. All east of this line continued to be known as the Northwest Territory; all west as the Indiana Territory. While thus deviating somewhat from the original boundaries, the act declared that whenever a new State should be created, the old line must be restored, as the Ordinance provided. Chillicothe was made the capital of the eastern, and Vincennes of the western division. Further indications of progress, and its demands, appear in the formation of Adams and Jefferson Counties in 1797, and of Ross in 1798. Clermont and Fairfield were created in 1800, and Belmont in 1801, thus making nine subdivisions organized in the twelve years since the first landing at Marietta. 6 Few States have shown a more robust growth; none cleared the way to local selfgovernment so soon. The quarrel between the factions for, and against, admission was carried before Congress, with the result that a so-called enabling act was passed (1802), authorizing the people of the eastern division to meet in convention, for the purpose of deciding this important question for themselves. The old boundary was restored, but Michigan 7 was thereby cut off, though the act provided for attaching her to the new State at a future time. All male citizens of the United States, of full age, who should have been residents of the Territory for one year, and have paid taxes therein, were declared qualified to

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vote for members of the convention, which was to meet at Chillicothe, on the first Monday in November, 1802. Should the act be accepted, the convention was authorized to form a State constitution, 8 and set up a State government at once. At first it was given one representative in the Lower House of Congress. As essential parts of the enabling act, the convention was to accept or reject the following propositions, to wit: That one section in every township should be granted to such township for schools; that the reserved salt springs should also be granted to the State; that one-twentieth of the net proceeds, accruing from sales of the public lands in the State, should be applied to the laying out and making of public roads, leading from the navigable waters of the Atlantic to the Ohio, to the said State, and through the same; 9 such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress. All this was to be the dowry of the new State, provided that she should, in return, exempt all government lands from taxation. The convention met, as prescribed; a State constitution was framed and adopted; a general election held in January (1803) for State officers; and March 1, on the assembling of the newly chosen Legislature, the State of Ohio assumed full sovereignty, as one of the United States of America. 10 ¹ WAYNE himself, after taking possession of Detroit for the United States, died at Presqueisle (Erie), Pa., December 15, 1796. ² DAYTON . These settlers entered by permission of Governor St. Clair: Jona. Dayton, Israel Ludlow, and Gen. Wilkinson, who had bought of Symmes. After the collapse of Symmes’s title, that of these purchasers was confirmed by the Government. The junction of Mad

River with the Great Miami here, pointed to Dayton as one of the important centres of the future. ³ CHILLICOTHE seems to have been the generic Shawnee term for any large town. Three or more are found at different points in Ohio. The settlement was notably increased (1798), by the arrival of some Virginians, among whom were Worthington, Tiffin, and Lucas—all subsequently governors of Ohio.

INDIANA TERRITORY, 1800–1812 7

4

I NTERNAL I M P R O V E M E N T S . Of the two political parties of the day, the Federalists believed that the public moneys could be used for building roads, canals, etc., as well as for forts, etc., while the Republicans believed such use to be unconstitutional. 5 E BENEZER Z A N E : refer back to p. 105 5

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T H E M I L I T A R Y B O U N T Y lands, “between the Reserve and the north line of the Seven Ranges and of the Ohio Company’s lands, stretching across from Pennsylvania to the Scioto, brought in a large immigration of Pennsylvania Germans. A strong element of the ScotchIrish from the same quarter also entered this middle belt, and was gradually diffused through the State.”—King’s Ohio, p. 281.

M ICHIGAN was, in fact, attached to Indiana until 1805, when a separate Territory was formed of it. 8 T HERE was no provision here, as in the case of some States of later origin, requiring the submission of the State constitution to the Congress. 9 T HIS APPARENTLY EXPLICIT language gave rise to warm discussion in the Congress of 1825. 10 O NE OF THE U NITED S T A T E S. The new State constitution provided that the Territorial government should remain in force until superseded by the election and qualifying of the new State officers and Legislature. Congress recognized the State in form February 19,1803; but it is clear that Congress could not forestall the acts of the people, as prescribed by itself, by a simple declaration.

INDIANA TERRITORY, 1800-1812

H ARRISON had been appointed governor of Indiana in the year 1800. Leaving Michigan out, there were, perhaps, five thousand white people in the territory, divided about equally east and west of the Wabash. In the old French settlements some slaves continued to be held in violation of the Ordinance, but inasmuch as a majority favored slavery, so far from enforcing the Ordinance, Congress was being constantly prayed to set aside that unpopular requirement. But this the Congress could not lawfully do.¹ The agitation upon this pregnant subject could have no other tendency than to check immigration. Those who desired slavery hesitated to take their slaves where they would be legally free; and those who detested slavery would not go where they feared it would be forced upon them, even against the law; so that Indiana

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was not filling up as fast as Ohio had done. If we look at the interior, we find it practically a wilderness still. Settlements were few and far between; and what there were, had mostly grown up around the rim of the Territory, on its navigable waters, leaving a vast interior to its primeval solitude.² Of the old settlements, Vincennes was still the important centre and capital. Of the new, Clark’s Grant, at the Falls of the Ohio, was, perhaps, the most flourishing. North of Vincennes, watered by the Wabash, stretched the Indian Country to the lakes—congenial home of the mixed tribes, who had been fighting in retreat ever since the whites had first crossed the Ohio. In 1803, Mr. Jefferson being then President, the United States bought all Louisiana ³ from France, thus opening the Mississippi to the commerce of the West, and so confirming the unity of the whole country, by doing away with all those vexatious restrictions which designing men had used to draw the East and West apart. For the purposes of government Upper Louisiana was attached to Indiana. Governor Harrison therefore took possession of it for the United States, at St. Louis, in 1804. In 1805 Indiana elected her first territorial legislature; and in 1809 the next step was taken toward political unity by setting off Illinois, practically on the present boundaries. By the act of division, both the legislative council and the representative 4 in Congress, as well as the assembly, were to be elected by the people. Whatever their political differences might be, there was always one subject upon which all new settlers were fully agreed; and that was to get rid of the Indians. There was not even the excuse of being crowded. More

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than ten thousand square miles of vacant lands was surely more than enough for the wants of twenty-five hundred people. But a strange sort of feeling had grown up on the frontier, that it was the Indians who were intruders; still more strange was the feeling that they were not to be dealt by as other men, but as something less than men. If the Indians would sell their lands on the white men’s terms, well and good; if not a way would be found to make them do it. This cruel policy has been the one prolific cause of our Indian wars from first to last. Everybody has denounced it, but nobody has put a stop to it. In consequence, there are few treaties with the Indians that will bear the scruWILLIAM HENRY HARRISON . tiny of honest men. Most of them have been obtained either by fraud or force. When his lands were taken from him by conquest, the Indian bore it like a man of courage; but when he had been cheated of them, his one resource was revenge. In common with other governors, Harrison had set about getting cessions of lands, first from one tribe, then from another, as one of his first duties. And in so do-

TREATY BOUNDARIES.

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ing he was only carrying out the wishes of his people. It is true that certain of the Indians were always willing to sell their lands for a song, to repent afterward. But, generally speaking the Indians were averse to making these sales, which up to 1809 footed up no less than three million acres in Indiana alone. This work did not proceed without opposition. Certain leading chiefs vigorously remonstrated against it, but to no effect. Greed on one side, and apathy on the other, baffled all their efforts. Certain crises in their history have produced great men among the Indians, as well as whites. Philip and Pontiac were two such men. Another now arose in Indiana, to renew the old, hopeTECUMSEH. less struggle against the ever advancing whites. His name was Tecumseh.5 Tecumseh broadly held that no one or two tribes could make treaties, conveying away lands, without the consent of all, and that all such treaties were therefore void. The United States held that such treaties were binding, but to this decision Tecumseh would not submit, and so war was the result. 14

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Tecumseh had a brother, called the Prophet, because he boldly declared himself able to foretell coming events, and even pretended to control them. As all Indians are deeply superstitious, the Prophet soon acquired great power, which he artfully used to inflame the old enmity against the whites, while his greater brother was working to the same end in a different way. And each, in his own way, was only too successful. Tecumseh appealed to the Indians to strike for their rights; the Prophet assured them that his charms would render them invulnerable in battle. Governor Harrison did not fail to call the plotters to an account. The Prophet denied everything. Tecumseh, on the contrary, met the governor boldly. He came down to Vincennes attended by four hundred fully armed warriors, and in a speech of great dignity and eloquence stated the grievances of his people. When he had finished, an aid, pointing to a vacant chair, said to Tecumseh, “Your father requests you to take a seat by his side.” Drawing his mantle around him, the chief proudly exclaimed, “My father! The sun is my father, and the earth my mother; on her bosom I will repose.” He then seated himself upon the bare ground, where he had stood. After this, Tecumseh travelled among all the tribes far and near, in the hope of uniting them against the whites. His well-laid plans were, however, hopelessly wrecked by the headlong folly of his brother, the Prophet, who, meantime, was gathering his followers together, where the Tippecanoe runs into the Wabash. This was assuming a too threatening position toward the whites at Vincennes to let pass unnoticed. Alive to the danger, Harrison sent various messengers there, who brought

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back word that the Prophet breathed nothing but defiance. To one of them he had angrily said, pointing to the ground, “There is your grave, look on it!” Finding the Indians thus hostile, Harrison marched at the head of nine hundred men to break up their camp. He halted, where the city of Terre Haute now stands, long enough to build Fort Harrison, and then pushed on toward the Prophet’s town, so called. When he had come before it, some chiefs came out to beg for delay, promising if he would grant it that everything he asked should be agreed to the next day. Deceived by their promises Harrison immediately granted their request. He even pitched his camp on a spot pointed out by these false messengers. 6 Tents were pitched, sentinels posted, fires built around the camp, and the men lay on their arms, awaiting the tap of the morning drum. The night was pitch dark and rainy. The vigilant sentinels paced their lonely rounds, listening to the pattering of the rain-drops among the bushes, that here and there skirted the camp in broken clumps or scattered copses. All seemed quiet. But in the still, small hours of the morning, under cover of these bushes, the Indians were closing up around the camp, themselves unseen and unheard; while the watch-fires lighted up the camp to their rifles. Thus they surrounded it. To prevent their giving an alarm, the sentinels were shot at with arrows. Some left their posts in a fright; one only fired and ran in. The Indians then rose up in a body, and made a dash for the camp, discharging their rifles into the tents, filling the air with horrid yells, startling the soldiers from their sleep to fight singly or in little groups, hand to hand, against the on-rushing swarm of assailants.

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Tippecanoe. The Americans were bravely led in successive charges, until the enemy had been forced a musket-shot back from around the camp. This done, they were driven from the field altogether by a final charge, before which they scattered in flight, leaving their abandoned town to the victors. This, with its stores of corn, was immediately destroyed, after which the army marched back to Vincennes. It was in no condition to fight another battle. One hundred and eighty men were killed and wounded. Among other valuable officers, Major Daviess, of the Kentucky horse, was killed while gallantly leading a charge. This memorable battle in the dark was fought November 7, 1811. Tecumseh returned only to find his plans completely ruined. In despair he went over to the English, with whom we were now on the verge of war. The false Prophet sank into obscurity and disgrace, as he so richly merited. ¹ THE STRUGGLE over slavery is exhaustively treated of in Dunn’s Indiana. ² NEARLY THE whole white population of what is now Indiana was either settled in Clark’s Grant or in and about Vincennes. Clark’s Grant comprised two and a half leagues square, at the Falls, given him first by the Indians and later confirmed to him by Virginia. ³ LOUISIANA PURCHASE was strongly opposed at the East as unwise, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. Jefferson’s known partiality for France was the alleged motive for his activity in the

matter, or as Madison is said to have put it, “France wants it, and must have it,” referring to the fifteen millions of purchase-money. See The Making of the Great West, pp. 171–183. 4 TERRITORIAL REPRESENTATIVES had no vote, but could speak in Congress 5 T ECUMSEH‚ or Tecumtha, was a Shawnee, born of a Creek mother, near Springfield, O. 6 TIPPECANOE BATTLE-GROUND is seven miles north of Lafayette. See plan in Lossing’s War of 1812, p. 205.

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A STAMPEDE OF HORSES [By an Officer of the Guard]

“ ABOUT June 10, 1812, at two o’clock in the morning, while Colonel Richard M. Johnson’s regiment was encamped on the peninsula, below Fort Wayne, in a beautiful grass plain, some of the horses that had passed the line of sentinels, and got some distance up the St. Joseph, became alarmed, and came running back into camp in a great fright. “This frightened all the horses in the regiment, which fell into a solid column within the lines, and took three rapid courses round the camp. It would seem almost incredible, but is no less a fact, that they did not appear to cover more than about forty by sixty yards of ground, and yet there were about six hundred in the band. The moon shone at the full, the camp was an open plain, and the sight awfully sublime. “The terrified horses at length forced their way through the lines, overset several tents, carried away several panels of fence, darted off through the woods, and were in a few minutes out of hearing of the loudest bells that belonged to the regiment. The next day was spent in collecting them. Some were found ten miles from camp; some were never found, although followed for more than twenty miles. “This alarming flight injured the horses more than could have been supposed, for they had run so long, in such a compact body, that very few escaped without being lamed, their hind feet having been cut by the shoes of those crowding upon them.”

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W ITHIN the short space of about twenty years, which we have so briefly reviewed, the almost uninhabited Northwest had become the home of two hundred and seventy thousand settlers, of whom Ohio had more than two-thirds (230,760); Kentucky alone (1810) had more people than all the territory north of the Ohio. Counting hers, there were, in all, about seven hundred thousand, or about one-eleventh of the whole population of the United States. This was certainly a great record. Most unhappily, however, this prosperity was now checked by the breaking out of war with England.¹ War with all the world, and peace with England, was an old Spanish maxim. War with England was, at any time, a serious thing, a deplorable thing, but to a country without either an army or navy, like the United States, while England had the best of both, the outlook was by no means promising. Worse still, most of the seaboard States were bitterly opposed to the war—Mr. Madison’s war, as they called it. But with good or bad grace, our raw recruits were now called upon to meet the veterans of Vittoria, Salamanca, and Toulouse. Though this war chiefly grew out of England’s insolent aggressions² on the high seas, so far from escaping its rage the New West was the first to feel it. Indeed, we may well consider it as beginning here, with the battle of Tippecanoe, as that victory had driven all who followed Tecumseh over to the English, whom they now looked upon as the deliverers of their country. Certain it was, therefore, that most, if not all, the Ind-

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through. Unless, therefore, this very long line could be kept open, an army acting on the frontier would be cut off from its supplies. If it could not retreat, it would have to surrender. If, now, we look at this distant frontier, shortly to be menaced by a host of enemies, we see Detroit closing access to all that great girdle of lakes at the west and northwest. It is also seen that Lake Erie offers by far the best route for supplying Detroit. Unfortunately for us, England had taken the command of that lake and purposed keeping it. She had the vessels, and we had none. She had a fort and dockyard at Malden, where it would be easy to intercept everything bound to Detroit, or to fit out expeditions against our frontier posts. At the beginning of the war, therefore, the odds were heavily against us. When Michigan was set off, in 1805, its population was put at 4,000 persons, mostly French Canadians. In 1810 it was only 4,762. Besides Detroit and Michilimackinac, a few settlers were living at Frenchtown³ (Monroe) or along the Raisin, in its vicinity. All else was a wilderness. Besides the old lake posts, so often mentioned, we had built one at Chicago, in 1802, since called Fort Dearborn, 4 in which a few soldiers were kept. The American plan was to carry the war into Canada. This was a line, five hundred miles long, stretching from Plattsburg to Detroit. If the great lakes had not so broken it up as to offer few real points of attack, all the armies of Europe could not have kept it intact. These points were Plattsburg, Niagara, and Detroit, on our side, and Kingston, Toronto, and Malden on the enemy’s.5 All were too widely separated to assist each other except

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by water. Whoever, then, should get control of the lakes, would be the probable victor in the coming contest. When Michigan was made a Territory, William Hull was appointed governor, with Detroit as the capital. Hull was a brave veteran of the Revolution, who in ordinary times, no doubt, would have made an excellent ruler, but unfortunately for him he was no Wayne, and nobody but a Wayne or a Clarke could successfully have struggled against the situation Hull was now placed in. Besides, Hull was too old for active service, yet he accepted the command, and his reputation as a military man must rest upon the result. In war that rule is inexorable. Under the plan, as outlined, Hull was to begin the invasion, while other captains were to follow it up, from west to east. To combine operations, on so long a line, was something that not even a Napoleon could have counted on. The plain fact is that we had no generals6 capable of handling armies or planning campaigns. Hence disaster followed disaster, in quick succession. Hull had two thousand men, drawn from Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, some good soldiers, but mostly raw recruits, under loose discipline. He had marched them over a new road, cut by him, from Urbana to the Maumee Rapids, by way of Kenton and Findlay. With these he crossed into Canada, as ordered (July 12th), with the view of taking Malden. He, however, halted at Sandwich, heard with alarm that Michilimackinac had fallen on the 16th, remained inactive and irresolute until August 7th, when the news that a convoy of provisions from Ohio had been cut off seems to have decided him to recross the river to Detroit, the better to protect his own communications.

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affair 9 took place on August 15th. One monster was seen to climb up into a wagon, in which twelve little children had been put, and tomahawk them all, one after another. These reverses turned every Indian tomahawk in the Northwest against the Americans. Tecumseh was tireless in bringing this about. Having swept away the outposts, the British and Indians now swarmed down upon the interior forts. First Fort Wayne was assaulted; then Fort Harrison. At both, however, the assailants were beaten off until relief came. Fort Harrison was stoutly defended by Captain Zachary Taylor, later President of the United States. From every quarter troops were being hurried to the threatened posts. Governor Harrison had promptly put himself at the head of those marching to the relief of Fort Wayne. Here he was superseded by General Winchester, 10 whose assumption of the command, by virtue of his rank, nearly caused a mutiny. Ignorant that the invaders were falling back before him, Winchester slowly marched down to Defiance. Here he halted and intrenched. Meantime, Harrison had been put in chief command again, and was now busy collecting a new army in the rear of the first. Having secured his outposts, he fixed his headquarters at Franklinton, a new village, situated opposite Columbus,11 in the heart of the State. The autumn was spent in laying waste all the Indian villages within reach—a cruel but sure way of keeping the war at a distance; the winter in dragging cannon from Pittsburg, and stores from Cincinnati, across the swamps of northern Ohio; in opening roads, enlisting recruits, and in getting ready for the spring campaign.

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In anticipation of this event, Lower Sandusky (Fremont, O.) was strongly occupied. Meantime, Winchester decided to take a more advanced position. He therefore marched down to the Maumee Rapids, the last of December. Half way between him and Detroit lay Frenchtown, then held by the enemy. After a short halt, a detachment was sent to drive them out of this place, which was handsomely done, January 18th. The rest of the army came up on the 19th, was disgracefully surprised on the 22d, held its ground in one part of the field, only to be driven from it in another, and surrendered the same day. As the wounded were inhumanly butchered by the Indians, this battle was long known as the “Massacre of the Raisin.” Harrison hastened to Winchester’s assistance, but he was too late. The blow staggered even him. Here was another army gone, general and all, and all the conquered ground lost. He first abandoned the Rapids, then went back there again, convinced that this post must be held at all risks. So the men were set to building a stronger work, now called Fort Meigs.12 The Americans having also met with defeat on the Niagara frontier, this had everywhere been a losing campaign, except on the ocean. Strange to say, we had been victorious where we had least reason to expect it. The spring campaign of 1813 now opened. It was Harrison’s task to recapture Detroit, restore Michigan, and destroy the enemy’s forces in that quarter. Of all the commanders, he was the only one to perform the part assigned him. The enemy, however, was first in the field. In April, the British general, Proctor, laid siege to Fort Meigs, where Harrison was waiting for reinforcements to be-

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The new fleet was at last afloat, and Captain Perry, of Rhode Island, was put in command of it. In every respect was the choice a fortunate one. Perry was cool, energetic, and a fighter to his finger’s’ ends. The enemy had collected a fleet at Malden, to oppose him. Perry’s orders to his captains were given in Nelson’s own words: “If you lay your enemy close alongside, you cannot be out of your places.” From Erie our fleet sailed to Put-in-Bay, just north of Sandusky, where Perry and Harrison met to concert a plan of action. On the morning of September 10th the enemy’s fleet was seen in the offing, boldly offering battle. Perry sailed out to meet it, flying COMMODORE O. H. PERRY . at his peak a signal-flag bearing the ever-famous motto of “Don’t give up the ship.” 13 At first the battle went against him. The wind was too light to bring his vessels into close action, as he had meant to do, so the enemy’s heavier guns reached Perry long before his could reach them; and their fire being all turned against the flag-ship, it was soon left a

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floating wreck, encumbered with the dead and dying. For a time it looked as if the inspiriting order of “Don’t give up the ship” would prove a sad mockery; but Perry soon showed himself equal to the crisis. Taking his flag with him, he went in an open boat through the storm of fire, to the Niagara, again hoisted his flag, and with that fresh ship once more led his remaining vessels so vigorously to the attack, that by three o’clock all of the enemy’s had struck their colors. The whole story is modestly told in Perry’s laconic despatch to Harrison: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.” On the 27th Perry’s ships landed Harrison’s army on the Canada side, to attack Malden. They found it abandoned and Detroit evacuated. These were the immediate results of Perry’s victory. Having brought only his infantry with him, Harrison now had to wait for Johnson’s mounted riflemen to join him. As soon as they had done so, the army at once pushed on in pursuit of the enemy. He was found strongly posted on the river Thames, 14 near the Moravian town. On finding the British formed in open order, Harrison promptly ordered Johnson’s troopers to charge them. These daring horsemen first rode through the British line, then, turning upon it from the rear, cut it to pieces, capturing many prisoners, and putting that wing to rout. Led by Tecumseh, the Indians made a much more stubborn fight, but they, too, soon scattered before the determined onset of the Americans, leaving their great leader dead on the field. On neither side were the losses heavy, but with Tecumseh’s fall, the confederacy of which he was the master spirit fell utterly to pieces. 15

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Lewis Cass, who had fought under Harrison, was now appointed governor of Michigan. With these events, the war in the West practically ended. It left the people impoverished. There had not been time to accumulate wealth or establish credit. A season of business depression followed, until time brought relief. As a rule, the first comers had not brought much money with them or paid for their lands. Their money had been spent for first improvements, and they now owed for their lands. Yet there were steady gains in population. Roads that had been cut for the passage of armies were now thronged with a more thrifty class of settlers. In Ohio, Columbus had grown up during the war. In 1815 it had two hundred houses, seven hundred people, and was building a State house. In 1816 it became the capital of the State. ¹ WAR WITH E NGLAND was declared June, 1812. ² ENGLAND ’S AGGRESSIONS, chiefly in searching our vessels for British subjects. ³ FRENCHTOWN (Monroe) and the River Raisin, began to be settled by French families, as the name implies, in 1784. There were also a few on the Rouge (Red) and at Grosse (Grand) Isle. 4 F ORT D EARBORN got its name from the general commanding the army. It was rebuilt 1816, after cession by the Pottawatomies of all the land on which the city of Chicago now stands, 5 For POINTS of contact, refer to the map. 6 No GENERALS . Dearborn, Hull, and Wilkinson were all failures. As the war progressed, it brought out excellent military talent. 7 S IR I S A A C B R O C K , after defeating Hull, went to the defence of the Niagara frontier, where he was killed in battle October 13, 1812.

8 H ULL WAS tried by a court-martial, and condemned to be shot, but was pardoned in consideration of former services. 9 T HE B ATTLE OF C HICAGO took place on ground now within the city limits. See note 4, which fixes an important historical date with respect to the rise of that city. 10 J AMES W INCHESTER , of Tennessee, made a brigadier in April, 1812; had seen service in the Revolutionary War. 11 C OLUMBUS WAS then covered by a forest, but dates its beginning from this time. 12 F ORT M EIGS stood opposite to Maumee City. Its importance, with respect to operations against Detroit, made it a special object of attack. 13 D YING WORDS of Captain Lawrence, of the Chesapeake. 14 T HAMES B ATTLE - G R O U N D is about eighteen miles above Chatham.

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“ IT was a bright autumnal day, when the army of General Harrison, under the escort of Commodore Perry’s little fleet, sailed out of Put-in-Bay for Malden. The warlike array of the little squadron, still scored with marks of the recent victory, the fluttering of pennants and waving of battle-flags, and the glitter of burnished muskets as the boats swept on to the shore, formed a truly animating and imposing sight. “Their course lay along that part of the lake which had been the scene of conflict but a few days before, and terrible reminders of that bloody day still surrounded them, in the blackened and mangled bodies of the dead. “As they drew nigh to the Canadian shore, an object was seen, flitting along the beach, now darting with rapid movement down the entire front of the approaching fleet, then leisurely pausing as if to reconnoitre. A nearer view showed a trim and athletic horseman, mounted on an Indian pony, dressed in a belted hunting-frock of smoked deerskin, with long gaiters, strapped below the knee, and richly ornamented moccasins. It was the celebrated Tecumseh, who, notwithstanding the flight of his white ally, had lingered behind to ascertain the force of the invading enemy. When he had satisfied himself on this point, he withdrew without haste, as if in dignified defiance, to carry his intelligence to his comrades.”

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JOHNSON’S KENTUCKIANS

JOHNSON’S KENTUCKIANS

“ A P A R T of the Kentucky troop of horse, under the command of Colonel Johnson, still following upon the tracks of General Proctor, after the battle of the Thames, took possession of the Moravian town, which had been but recently evacuated by the enemy. These wild and fearless riders, to whom all peril was but a pastime, were already rendered furious by the cold and savage butcheries, which had spilled the best blood of Kentucky like water. When, therefore, orders were given to fire the rows of deserted log-cabins, which formed the town, these wild riders, in the mere wantonness of daring, scoured furiously through the streets, walled in as they were on either side by sheets of flame, their vicious and halftamed animals to all appearance equally elated with the strange glee of their masters. The very appearance of these mad warriors must have been semi-barbarous, bearded and browned as they were by exposure, and attired in the costume of the backwoodsmen, with their carbines slung at their backs, the long hunting-knife thrust into the belt of the deerskin frock, and the canteen slung from the bearskin saddle-bows. This, with the roaring of the conflagration, the crash of falling timbers, the shouts of these desperate troopers, and the clattering of their horses as they burst through the smoke and flames, must have presented as strange and stirring a picture as has ever been sketched by the pencil of romance.”

THE NATIONAL ROAD

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THE NATIONAL ROAD

I N all ages, men and nations have been mostly controlled by purely selfish motives in whatever concerned the course of politics or trade. It was so with the handful of settlers in the Ohio Valley, and it will probably be so to the end of time. Remoteness began to be felt, first as a serious hindrance to rapid prosperity, and then as a grievance to be redressed in one way or another. With the rise of a feeling that they were being neglected, added to that of

OLD

STAGE-WAGON.

a growing power within themselves, sentimental attachment to the Union began to cool. But when that remoteness was felt to be steadily drawing East and West apart, statesmen began to be alarmed for the national unity, and with good reason. Already disunion was being openly talked of in Kentucky; already the prospects of a Western Confederacy were being coldly discussed; already demagogues were asking, not what the Union had cost the whole country, but what it was worth to them alone. Though the purchase of Louisiana did much to allay this feeling, it could not wholly subdue it. For one

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thing, the seat of government was at the East; for another, population moved from East to West. It was then seen that facility of communication alone could bring these two widely separated sections together; so when Ohio was admitted, the United States had agreed to make a great national highway from the navigable waters of the Atlantic slope to the Ohio River. This was the first great step taken in the direction of interstate improvements. Some men were then dull as to its necessity or meaning, and some, fortunately, were a great deal wiser than their generation. But as if to AARON BURR. undo everything at its very beginning, that first of filibusters, Aaron Burr,¹ now sent forth his secret expedition on the Ohio and Mississippi, for which he was arrested and tried on the charge of treason. Though his real aims were never fully revealed, his acts were believed to mask a purpose of taking the West out of the Union; hence even Burr’s conspiracy did something to hasten the building of the

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public road, by bringing home to all a danger that few had believed to be real. So the attitude of the Ohio Valley undoubtedly hastened this great public work, as a direct means to the preservation of the Union, in like manner, and on similar grounds of public policy, as afterward brought about the building of the Pacific Railway in the midst of a great civil war. Cumberland, Md., was fixed upon as the starting-point, and Wheeling, Va., as the one where the road should strike the Ohio. The distance was one hundred and forty-two miles. It was begun under an Act of Congress of March 29, 1806, first under the control of President Jefferson, and afterward under that of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury. During President Madison’s administration more than a million dollars was spent upon it. Up to the year 1825 it had cost a million eight hundred thousand dollars. The route mostly followed Braddock’s old road beyond Laurel Hill, then struck off to Brownsville, formerly Redstone,² on the Monongahela. This was the Eastern division. Thence it ran on to Wheeling, over the Western division. The road was built on a much more costly plan than the fund set apart for the purpose justified, or its needs required. It was sixty-six feet wide, with a road-bed twenty feet in width, deeply covered with macadam. The bridges were solid stone structures, built to last for years. It was truly a costly piece of work, but when completed, there were no longer any Alleghanies. A traveller who rode over this route in 1819 thus relates his experience: “Early this morning we commenced a perilous jour-

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ney, ascending and descending the Alleghany Mountains all day. All here is wild, awfully precipitous, and darkly umbrageous. I almost resolved on not returning this way by the mail, which carries, and keeps, one, in constant alarm unless the traveller has nerves of iron or brass. Such, however, is the expertness of the drivers, that there is no ground for real alarm.” Regular and frequent communication between West and East was now established. The traveller, be he merchant, politician, or farmer, took his seat in a fast mail-coach, dined or supped at an inn, and was whirled on to his desB R A D D O C K ’S GRAVE, NATIONAL ROAD. tination on schedule time, as in the older States. Thousands travelled this road on foot, on horseback, in wagons, or in private conveyances—all pressing on toward the Ohio. Measured by the ideas of its day, it had cost an enormous sum; but if results only be considered, it is believed to have put forward settlement twenty years. ¹ BURR escaped conviction for want of proof of an overt act of treason. See Marshall’s Washington.

² RED S TONE (Brownsville), the site of Fort Burd (1759), began the settlements on the Monongahela.

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT

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THE FIRST STEAMBOAT

T H E evolution in ways of travel is a distinct feature of Western growth, and it curiously marks off that growth into certain well-defined periods. First we have the Indian’s bark canoe, swift, light, portable; next, the pirogue, shaped out of some great tree, clumsy, slow-moving, but strong, and so first used by the traders to carry cargoes

FULTON’S

STEAMBOAT.

about; then comes the flat-boat, or Kentucky ark, created at the call of the emigrant for a vessel to carry himself, his family, his cattle, and household property, all at one time. When the emigrant had reached his destination, this boat could be knocked to pieces, and the boards used to build him a house. In every sense of the word, it was a house-boat. Thus easily do we trace the finger of progress in these

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crude efforts of a crude people! These boats had carried their thousands, but none of them made any account of the value of time. A flat-boat would float with the current, from Pittsburg to New Orleans, in seventy-five days —long enough to go round the world in now. Meantime, a puny steam-engine had been put into a rude scow, with which, amid scoffings and jeers, Robert Fulton pushed out from New York in August, 1807, to breast the waters of the Hudson. The world knows the result. Great was the rejoicing when it was known that the Clermont had actually steamed five miles an hour, against the current, without sails or oars. To-day a picture of the Clermont excites only a pitying smile. The quickness with which any really great or valuable invention is diffused, is characteristic of the American people. No sooner was Fulton’s proved to be so, than it was carried to Western waters, and with the launching of its first steamboat there, the New West unquestionably received its first great impulse. This was the New Orleans, launched in October, 1811, while the country was on the eve of war with England. As she swept down the Ohio, on her first voyage, her strange looks, the speed with which she moved, the message she carried of a new era in travel, may well have aroused strange thoughts in the minds of all who saw her. This novel ship reached Louisville after a run of seventy hours from Pittsburg. Owing to the low stage of water she was not able to continue her voyage at once, but eventually arrived at New Orleans on December 24th. In the interval she plied, as a packet, between Louisville and Cincinnati. Then began a famous hammering along the Monongahela. A new industry sprung into life. Boat followed boat. The novelty soon wore off, and in a year or two

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT

people accepted this wonderful work already old, and were now turning their speedy method of travel by land. It was not until the year 1818 that made her appearance on the lakes.

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of man as a thing thoughts to a more the first steamboat She was built at

WALK-IN-THE-WATER

Black Rock, significantly near the same spot where La Salle had launched his Griffin so long before. Quaint of build, quaintly named, the Walk-in-the-Water started from Buffalo for her first trip to Detroit on August 25th. Turnpikes and steamboats had fully solved the question of national unity.

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THE ERIE CANAL, 1825

THE ERIE CANAL, 1825

T H E problem of cheap and quick transportation between East and West remained, however, to be solved by the Erie Canal. Undoubtedly, the New West owed more to that greatest undertaking of its time than to all other agencies put together. Its completion, therefore, marks an epoch in our history. New York was still a wilderness, roamed over by Indians, when the idea of cutting a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson was first put forth. To that man’s mind it came like the flash of a meteor across the heavens; and like the meteor it left no trace behind. But when we come to think seriously of it, the wonder is that the canal was built as early as it was. One man, resolutely bent on accomplishing one object, is always a power. From deep thinking of the subject, Jesse Hawley became convinced that the canal could be built. He first set himself to work creating a popular feeling in its favor. His efforts met with so much ridicule that the printer finally refused to publish anything more on the subject. This was in the year 1807. But Hawley’s arguments had convinced other men, and that was just what he had set himself to do. In short, the matter was now taken up seriously. The State was pressed to do something to test its feasibility. More to get rid of the subject, than anything else, the slender sum of six hundred dollars was voted for a survey. But on that very day the canal was built; for every subsequent move fully vindicated the faith of its friends. President Jefferson’s second inaugural address (March,

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1805), first opened the subject of applying the surplus revenue to the building of canals, roads, etc. An attempt was therefore made to secure national aid for the Erie Canal. In a personal interview with the President, its friends urged that its completion would people the whole Northwest Territory. After attentively listening to them, Mr. Jefferson very decisively replied, “Why, sir, you talk of making a canal three hundred and fifty miles long through the wilderness! It is little short of madness to think of it at this day.” Buffalo then contained perhaps thirty houses, Cleveland was a hamlet, Detroit a large village, and Chicago a trading-post. After the War of 1812-15 was over, and travel again began setting westward, the canal project was revived more vigorously than ever. Its friends had found another argument in its favor. Probably that war did more to demonstrate the need of the canal, as a national highway, than anything that could have happened. But it had also left the national treasury empty. So again that resource failed. The canal was then taken up by the State of New York alone. Funds were provided by laying a tax upon the salt manufactured in the central part of the State. On July 4, 1817, work began at Rome, the summit of the water-shed, and on October 26, 1825, the waters of the great lakes were quietly flowing through the canal to the Hudson, and New York was blazing with bonfires from one end to the other. In just a hundred years from the time the idea was first advanced by Cadwallader Colden, the waters of the great lakes had been turned through our own territory to the sea. It is true that the face of the country,

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To the New West the canal at once gave its greatest impulse. An emigrant could now take his family there with some degree of comfort. Valuable time was saved, and fatigue lessened. But perhaps its greatest function was in providing an outlet for the produce of the Northwest to the greatest markets of the East. Men are now living who travelled over this canal to the West, little dreaming that it would so soon be superseded by steam railways, except for the carriage of grain from the West, or merchandise from the East.

INDIANA A STATE, 1816

Two years before the war of 1812 Indiana had but twenty-four thousand five hundred and twenty people. A year after it was over, she was asking for admission to the Union with more than sixty thousand.¹ Congress passed an enabling act, April 19, 1816, providing for the election of delegates, who should proceed to form a State constitution, to take effect without being submitted to the people. This convention met at Corydon,² June 10th, formed a constitution excluding slavery, with which Indiana was admitted December 11, 1816. William Hendricks was the first representative in the Congress. Short as had been the time since those States were settled, Indiana was drawing heavily upon Kentucky on one side, and upon Ohio on the other. Two differing streams of population may therefore be traced throughout her history. But this was not all. Chiefly through the efforts of the Ohio Company, the fame of this fertile

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region had spread beyond the seas; and with the close of the war Europe was pouring its thousands into the New West. This army moved noiselessly, but so effectively that at its every halting-place we find a new town, indicating its origin by its name. Thus, a little colony of robust Swiss began Vevay, on the Ohio, where they went to planting vineyards, which speedily became the wonder of all who saw them, if not the beginning of a great industry. Besides these frugal and industrious people, quite a sprinkling of well-to-do English farmers had found their way to the Wabash Valley, some through Canada, some through the United States. What we could not see with our own eyes, we may through those of an intelligent Englishman of this class, who was travelling to the Wabash country in the year 1819. Let us go with him. It is a rude, but striking, picture he gives us of life and manners in the wilds of Indiana. Clearing land, he tells us, meant simply grubbing up the small surface roots in the way of the plough, cutting down a few large trees within about three feet of the ground, and then killing the rest by cutting out a strip of the bark, all round the body of the huge trunks, which then, root and branch, began to die. This was called “girdling.” When a tree was dead, fire was put around it, and very often smoke was seen streaming up from the top of some giant of the forest, as from some tall chimney-top. Thousands of acres of valuable woodland were destroyed in this way. At Portland, 3 just below Louisville, our traveller saw a dozen steamboats lying aground, waiting for a rise of the river. He goes on to say: “I crossed the Ohio here, and landed at New Albany,4 a rising young vil-

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lage, to breakfast, where for the first time I found fine, sweet, white, home-baked bread. “At eleven I rested and baited at a farm log-house having one room only; the farmer came to it ten years ago, and has settled on two quarter-sections of land. The first house is for five or six years a miserable hole, with one room only, after which rises a better, and the old one is turned into a kitchen. This man has a good horse-mill at work night and day, to which people come with grist from ten to fifteen miles, working it with their own horses, and leaving the miller one-eighth for toll. “I slept at Mrs. Moore’s log tavern, with three rooms, and a broken window in each; all moderately comfortable until the pelting storms of winter come, when it will snow and blow upon the beds. At bed-time two of the young Moores mounted their horses, and with five dogs set off hunting until midnight, after raccoons, foxes, wolves, bears, and wild-cats. “Next day at noon, I stopped at another log-house, quarter-section farmer’s, with two fine healthy boys, who, themselves, have cleared forty acres of heavily timbered land such as is seldom seen, and cropped it twice in eighteen months.” Of another place he says: “The wife, husband, brother, and three wild children, sleep in one room, together with three or four travellers, all on the floor, bedless, but wrapped up in blankets. Our hostess hung on the cookall, and gave us fowls, ill-flavored bacon, and wild beef, all stewed down to rags, like hotch-potch, together with coffee and home-made sugar, for supper and breakfast.” At another poor cabin the farmer said to him: “I am an old man, and have only my boys; we do all the 16

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labor, and get sixty bushels of corn to the acre, but no wheat of any consequence yet. We can always sell all the produce we raise to new-comers.” “But,” said I, “what will you do when your new-comers and neighbors have as much to spare and sell as you have?” To this question the shrewd economist made a far-seeing reply. “Oh!” said he, “then we’ll give it to our cattle and pigs, which can travel to a market somewhere.” Incisive question could not have been better answered. Vincennes, he says, looked “like an old worn-out dirty village, of wooden frame-houses, which a fire might much improve.” There was no church save the Catholic. Sunday was given up to frolic and recreation, The steam flour-mill ran on this day, and on others day and night. In short, work was carried on much as on week-days. The court-house he calls a really elegant building, but going to decay before it was finished. The State Seminary, a fine structure, was in a scarce better plight. Princeton was a four-year-old village and county-seat. It had about a hundred houses, a prison, and a meetinghouse, all of wood. When a settler wanted to build, all the neighbors would come on a fixed day to help him, and by night the house would be ready to move into. Few farmers had tools. In one case a carpenter had to travel a mile and a half to grind his tools on a neighbor’s grindstone. Only at a house-raising could anything like a proper kit of tools be got together, in a sparsely settled neighborhood. Harmony was settled by a religious sect called Harmonists, 5 who removed from Pennsylvania to the Wabash in 1815. They were Germans. The society itself was an early experiment of pious socialists, of whom George Rapp, the chief, was the temporal as well as spiritual head.

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And he was obeyed as fully as ever Roman pontiff was. In a word, George Rapp was Church and State. All property was held in common, and a life of celibacy enjoined. There were eight hundred who removed. In a very short time they had built from eighty to one hundred large, substantial buildings. In their order, neatness, and perfect subordination Flint thought they resembled the Shakers. Their great house of assembly was nearly one hundred feet square. Our traveller reached Harmony at dusk, finding there a large and comfortable brick tavern, the best and cleanest he had seen in Indiana. They told him that the Harmonists did all kinds of business better than anybody else. A stranger, he says, asked the landlord of what religion the community were. In broken English he crossly replied, “Dat’s no matter; dey is all a satisfied people.” He then asked if strangers would be allowed to attend their church the next day. “No,” was the short reply. These people were never seen idling away their time; all was industry. Most had trades. They believed in buying nothing that they could make or raise themselves. By pursuing this policy they grew rich fast. The country was turned into a garden. Their herds and flocks were the envy of farmers far and near. They wore blue homespun of their own make, dressed all alike, and from the narrowness of their lives acquired a severity of manners quite like some of the monastic orders. When they had made the place an Eden, they left it. Evansville grew up as a point of departure for the Wabash, for immigrants descending the Ohio. Population was slowly working its way back into the interior,

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but the geographical centre of the State was as yet untouched. In these crowding times the little group of French settlements were no longer what they had been. They could not change their habits or manners; they did not take kindly to strange institutions. We have a picture so graphic, and yet so pathetic, of the colonial Frenchman whom the turn of events had made an exile in his own home, a stranger on his own hearthstone, that we do not hesitate to borrow it. “The ancient habitant,” says Mr. Dunn, “rises before us lithe and erect as in his prime. The old capote is there, the beaded moccasins, the little ear-rings, and the black queue. His dark eyes glitter beneath his turban handkerchief as of yore. There stands his old calèche. He mounts upon it and moves away— away—away—until its creaking sounds no longer, and we realize that he is gone forever.” ¹ SIXTY THOUSAND was the limit prescribed by the Ordinance. In 1820 the population was one hundred and fortyseven thousand; in 1830, three hundred and forty-four thousand. ² CORYDON was for some time the political centre of Indiana, Vincennes having become too remote to sustain that relation longer. ³ PORTLAND , Ky., is at the foot of the falls, and of the canal built around them and completed in 1830. 4 N EW ALBANY and Jeffersonville owe

their rise to their situation below and above the falls; also to being points of departure for St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Chicago. 5 T HE HARMONY Society was organized in 1805, at Old Harmony, Butler Co., Penn. Ten years after, the society sold their lands, and migrated in a body to Indiana. In 1825, they again sold out to Robert Owen, the Socialist, went back to Pennsylvania, and built the town of Economy, eighteen miles below Pittsburg, on the Ohio.

EMIGRANTS ON THE PRAIRIES

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EMIGRANTS ON THE PRAIRIES J. Fenimore Cooper

“ TH E harvest of the first year of our possession had

long been passed, and the fading foliage of a few scattered trees was already beginning to exhibit the hues and tints of autumn, when a train of wagons issued from the bed of a dry rivulet, to pursue its course across the undulating surface of what, in the language of the country of which we write, is called a rolling prairie. The vehicles, loaded with household goods and implements of husbandry, the few straggling sheep and cattle that were herded in the rear, and the ragged appearance and careless mien of the sturdy men who loitered at the sides of the lingering teams, united to announce a band of emigrants seeking for the Eldorado of the West. “In the little valleys, which, in the regular formation of the land, occurred at every mile of their progress, the view was bounded on two of the sides by the gradual and slow elevations which give name to the description of prairie we have mentioned; while on the other, the meagre prospect ran off in long, narrow, barren perspectives, but slightly relieved by a pitiful show of coarse though somewhat luxuriant vegetation. From the summit of the swells the eye became fatigued with the sameness and chilling dreariness of the landscape. The earth was not unlike the ocean, when its restless waters are heaving heavily, after the agitation and fury of the tempest have begun to lessen. There was the same regular and waving surface, the same absence of foreign objects, and the same boundless extent to the view. In-

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deed, so very striking was the resemblance between the water and the land that, however the geologist might sneer at so simple a theory, it would have been difficult for a poet not to have felt that the formation of the one had been produced by the subsiding dominion of the other. Here and there a tall tree rose out of the bottoms, stretching its naked branches abroad like some solitary vessel; and to strengthen the delusion, far in the distance appeared two or three rounded thickets, looming in the misty horizon like islands resting on the waters. It is unnecessary to warn the practised reader that the sameness of the surface and the low stands of the spectators exaggerated the distance; but as swell appeared after swell, and island succeeded island, there was a disheartening assurance that long, and seemingly interminable, tracts of territory must be passed before the wishes of the humblest agriculturist could be realized.” ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN, 1810-1837

I N 1810 Illinois had 12,282 white inhabitants; eight years later it was admitted to the Union.¹ Besides three and a half million acres voted to the soldiers of 1812, Congress granted one section in each township of the public lands for the support of schools, to which was added three per cent. of the net proceeds arising from the sale of all public lands within the State; two per cent. was set apart for building roads. Thus handsomely endowed, Illinois started out on a career of almost unexampled prosperity, checked now and then by unwise legislation, but again advancing like the ocean’s tide. At this interesting period, we find the old French set-

ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN, 1810–1837

tlements stretched along the fertile American Bottom of the Mississippi,² still the most important, compact, and homogeneous centre of population. Next came the group lying about Vincennes, and extending a weak line down the Wabash; next some few scattered outsettlements—a cabin here and there— straggling along the great road between; and lastly a few rude villages or hamlets lying along the course of the Ohio. From this rapid survey it will be seen that most of the population lay south of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. In fact, all but two of the organized counties were within these

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AMERICAN BOTTOM, VICINITY OF ST. LOUIS.

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ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN, 1810–1837

limits; while Madison and Bond extended them a little at the north. Madison and St. Clair on the Mississippi, and Gallatin on the Wabash, were the most populous. More than two-thirds of the whole area of this great State was, therefore, a wilderness still. There was a trader or two at Peoria; at Chicago just two,³ whose families, with the garrison newly set up there, eagerly looked forward to the arrival of the Government schooner, that, once a year, brought news from the outside world, and supplies for the fort. All carrying on Lake Michigan was still done in bateaux, as of old, and all commerce restricted to the fur-trade. Peaceful progress affords few materials for history. The extension of the great National Road into the State, and of steam navigation on the Ohio and the lakes, tells the whole story. After the lapse of a few years, we find old centres of population become only halting-places for the host marching westward, the frontier moving with it, as do the approaches to a city besieged. One large body of settlers located themselves on the military tract, set apart by Congress, at the mouth of the Illinois. Another, coming from New England, New York, and North Carolina, took up lands on the fertile Sangamon, even before they were surveyed. Still another colony, under the lead of Morris Birkbeck 4 and the two Flowers, father and son, arose on the Lower Wabash. The leaders having quarrelled, the Flowers established themselves at Albion, and Birkbeck started Wanborough, close to it. In 1819 Albion boasted one frame-house and a dozen log-cabins, though it also had a market and public library. According to a traveller, who visited it in that year, Albion was filled with homesick idlers, mostly mechanics, who, like the early Virginia colonists, had come there ex-

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pecting to live without labor. The neighboring village of Wanborough was better off, for every settler there worked a small farm. Here Birkbeck lived in the style of a great English landlord, shooting over his sixteen thousand broad acres, raising flocks and herds, and

writing letters home praising the country, but never realizing his pet idea of founding a THE MOUTH OF THE OHIO. colony of happy and industrious dependants. His two sons once laughed heartily at seeing a general killing a pig, and a judge driving his own wagon. Meantime (1816), the Government had set up another military post at Rock Island,5 on the Mississippi, near a

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principal village of the Sacs. The doing this gave great offence to the Sacs, who, however, for the time being kept quiet, but, later broke out into open hostilities, under the lead of the celebrated chief Black Hawk.6 This petty frontier fort was the germ of the future cities of Rock Island, and Davenport on the opposite bank. We will now briefly look at what had been doing in Michigan. After the war of 1812, John Jacob Astor 7 had bought out the British fur-traders at Michilimackinac, 8 or Mackinaw, as it was now universally called by trappers and traders, and his men were now scouring the country far and wide for its furs. Through the efforts of Governor Cass, 9 large numbers of Indians were removed beyond the Mississippi, between the years 1814 and 1817, and their lands thrown open to settlement. Pre-emption rights were given, later, to actual settlers. Upon the admission of Illinois, all that remained of the Northwest Territory was annexed to Michigan, thus embracing what is now the State of Wisconsin, whose puny trading-houses at Green Bay, Portage, and Prairie du Chien were being strengthened by forts, 10 so as to maintain that old line of communication between the lakes and the Mississippi. Though visited by an occasional trader, Milwaukee 11 had as yet no permanent settlers. Elkanah Watson has left an animated picture of Detroit at this time. He says: “The location of Detroit is very pleasant, being somewhat elevated, and boldly fronting its beautiful river. The old town has been burnt, which was a cluster of miserable structures picketed in, and occupied by the descendants of Frenchmen, who pitched their tents here. The city is now laid out upon

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a large scale, the streets spacious and crossing at right angles. The main street is called Jefferson Avenue, and stretches the whole length of the city. Commerce is languishing and agriculture at its lowest state. I saw at the Grande Marie, four miles north of the city, a large, clumsy, wooden plough, such as doubtless were in use in France at the period of the emigration of the ancestors of this people. “The numerous and large old orchards of the finest apples, originally imported from France, and the extensive fisheries of white fish in the vicinity, greatly increase the comfort and wealth of the people. Although possessing the most fertile soil, such is the wretched character of their agriculture that the inhabitants are mainly dependent upon the young and thriving State of Ohio for their supplies of beef, pork, breadstuffs, and even potatoes. “The near approach of the wilderness to Detroit brings the howling wolves within a short distance of the city; and I was frequently called upon to listen to their shrill cries in the calm, hot nights.” The interior, he adds, had been only roughly explored, but while he was at Detroit several parties of enterprising young men plunged into the forests with packs on their backs, who returned with glowing accounts of what they had seen. It was in this year that the Walk-in-the-Water came steaming up the river from Buffalo, the happy herald of a wonder-working age. A newspaper, The Detroit Gazette, made its appearance in 1817, though a press had been set up as early as 1809. Indians were still constant, though by no means welcome visitors, as their filthy habits and fondness for ardent spirits rendered them only objects of pity and disgust.

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In 1819 Michigan Territory sent William Woodbridge as a delegate to Congress. In 1827 the people assumed full control of the law-making power as provided for by the Ordinance. The Erie Canal, with steam vessels navigating the lakes, was now carrying emigrants into the Northwest in such numbers that, by 1830, there were in Michigan 32,538 persons, chiefly emigrants from New England, New York, and Ohio. Before a new State was half settled, the restless population were ready to remove upon hearing that better or cheaper lands were to be had elsewhere. As fast as these rolling stones moved out, a more stable class moved in; so that this winnowing process was in nowise detrimental in the end. The Black Hawk War, and the cholera (1832), gave Michigan a temporary check, from which there came, however, a quick recovery, as in 1834 the population footed up 87,238 persons. A State convention, therefore, met at Detroit in May, 1835, which framed a constitution, adopted by the people in October. This step gave rise to a dispute with Ohio about its northern boundary, which involved gaining or losing the harbor of Toledo, 1 2 though that city was not yet begun. Rather than be kept out of the Union, Michigan gave way, receiving in return for the lost territory the Upper Peninsula, and it was then admitted January 26, 1837. Michigan thus completed the New Thirteen States, added to the Union since the Old Thirteen had achieved their independence, or in a little more than fifty years. ¹ CONGRESS PASSED an enabling act April 18, 1818; accepted by the people in convention, at Kaskaskia, August 26; State declared admitted by resolve of Congress, December 3; Kaskaskia the

first capital. The sixty-thousand limit of the Ordinance was waived so as to admit Illinois with a less number. See Appendix, Art. V. ² REFER BACK to p. 33 et seq.

ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN, 1810–1837 ³ AT C H I C A G O were the families of John Kinzie and Antoine Ouilmette, or Guilmette. 4 M O R R I S B I R K B E C K ’ S Notes on a Journey in America, Cobbett’s A Year’s Residence in America; Faux’s Memorable Days in America form a group of literature of two-fold interest—first as showing how oppressive taxation, growing out of the wars, was turning emigration from England to the New West, next as a voluminous record of the beginnings of these Illinois settlements. 5 T HE WAR being over, Government went vigorously to work, building forts on all the important lines of communication to cover the advancing emigration. Fort Armstrong, at Rock Island, was built by Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence, United States Army, and was at one time commanded by Colonel Zachary Taylor. 6 B LACK H AWK W AR grew out of the refusal of this warrior to leave Illinois under the terms of a treaty (1804) to which he and his band of Sacs had not been a party. Having been driven across the Mississippi (1831), he returned the next year in force, spreading terror before him, until again driven back whence he came with great loss. Abraham Lincoln was a volunteer in this little war. 7 J OHN J ACOB A STOR was at the head of the American Fur Company, successor to the British company, on the American side of the boundary line. See The Making of the Great West, pp. 212, 213, and following. 8 M ICHILIMACKINAC . As this is always the early spelling before the name was clipped to Mackinaw by the traders, it

253

would be obviously confusing to adopt two forms for this volume. 9 L EWIS C ASS was the son of Jonathan Case, of Exeter, N. H., who removed to Marietta, O., in 1799. The father had served in the Revolution; the son, as already related, in Hull’s unfortunate campaign. A S Governor of Michigan, Lewis Cass was the right man in the right place. He was called from that post to a seat in President Jackson’s Cabinet in 1831. 10 S TRENGTHENED by forts (see note 5). Fort Howard at Green Bay; Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien in 1816; and Fort Winnebago at Portage in 1828–29. 11 M I L W A U K E E was an offshoot of Green Bay. Its generic name is supposed to be that of the tribe whose village occupied the spot. Solomon Juneau, a Green Bay trader, became its first permanent settler in 1818 (some accounts say 1820), by building the first house at the junction of what is now East Water with Wisconsin Street, into which he moved with his family. This constituted the settlement up to 18341835, when the site was first offered at public sale. See Strong’s Wisconsin Territory, p. 105. 1 2 T OLEDO . At this date (1835) emigrants bound up the Maumee to Fort Wayne were landed at Perrysburg, opposite Maumee City, proceeding thence in pirogues. There was no wagon-road; only a horse-path. Chiefly through the efforts of Hugh McCullough, of that State, many settlers were coming from Maine to the Maumee, and some of them are still living there. See both sides of the boundary question discussed in King’s Ohio and Cooley’s Indiana.

254

ALSATIAN EMIGRANTS TO OHIO

ALSATIAN EMIGRANTS TO OHIO [From Victor Hugo’s “The Rhine”]

“A FEW moments before crossing the far-famed battlefield of Montmirail, I met a cart rather strangely laden; it was drawn by a horse and an ass, and contained pans, kettles, old trunks, straw-bottomed chairs, with a heap of old furniture. In front, in a sort of basket, were three children, almost in a state of nudity, behind, in another, were several hens. The driver wore a blouse, was walking, and carried a child on his back. A few steps from him was a woman. They were all hastening toward Montmirail, as if the great battle of 1814 were on the eve of being fought. “I was informed, however, that this was not a removal; it was an expatriation. It was not to Montmirail they were going—it was to America. They were not flying at the sound of the trumpet of war—they were hurrying from misery and starvation. In a word, it was a family of poor Alsatian peasants who were emigrating. They could not obtain a living in their native land, but had been promised one in Ohio.”

APPENDIX. A N O RDINANCE FOR THE G OVERNMENT U NITED S TATES N ORTHWEST OF

T ERRITORY R IVER O HIO .

OF THE THE

OF THE

S ECTION 1. Be it ordained by the United States, in Congress assembled, That the said territory, for the purpose of temporary government, be one district, subject, however, to be divided into two districts, as future circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient. S E C. 2. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the estates both of resident and non-resident proprietors in the said territory, dying intestate, shall descend to, and be distributed among their children and the descendants of a deceased child in equal parts, the descendants of a deceased child or grandchild to take the share of their deceased parent in equal parts among them; and where there shall be no children or descendants, then in equal parts to the next of kin, in equal degree; and among collaterals, the children of a deceased brother or sister of the intestate shall have, in equal parts among them, their deceased parent’s share; and there shall, in no case, be a distinction between kindred of the whole and half-blood; saving in all cases to the widow of the intestate, her third part of the real estate for life, and onethird part of the personal estate; and this law, relative to descents and dower, shall remain in full force until altered by the legislature of the district. And until the governor and judges shall adopt laws as hereinafter mentioned, estates in the said territory may be devised or bequeathed by wills in writing, signed and sealed by him or her in whom the estate may be (being of full age), and attested by three witnesses; and real estates may be conveyed by lease and release, or bargain and sale, signed, sealed, and delivered by the person, being of full age, in whom the estate may be, and attested by two witnesses, provided such wills be duly proved, and such conveyances be acknowledged, or the exe-

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cution thereof duly proved, and be recorded within one year after proper magistrates, courts, and registers, shall be appointed for that purpose; and personal property may be transferred by delivery, saving, however, to the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskies, Saint Vincents, and the neighboring villages, who have heretofore professed themselves citizens of Virginia, their laws and customs now in force among them, relative to the descent and conveyance of property. S E C. 3. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That there shall be appointed, from time to time, by Congress, a governor, whose commission shall continue in force for the term of three years, unless sooner revoked by Congress; he shall reside in the district, and have a freehold estate therein, in one thousand acres of land, while in the exercise of his office. S E C. 4. There shall be appointed from time to time, by Congress, a secretary, whose commission shall continue in force for four years, unless sooner revoked; he shall reside in the district, and have a freehold estate therein in five hundred acres of land while in the exercise of his office. It shall be his duty to keep and preserve the acts and laws passed by the legislature, and the public records of the district, and the proceedings of the governor in his executive department, and transmit authentic copies of such acts and proceedings every six months to the Secretary of Congress. There shall also be appointed a court, to consist of three judges, any two of whom to form a court, who shall have a common-law jurisdiction, and reside in the district, and have each therein a freehold estate, in five hundred acres of land, while in the exercise of their offices; and their commissions shall continue in force during good behavior. S E C. 5. The governor and judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt and publish in the district such laws of the original States, criminal and civil, as may be necessary, and best suited to the circumstances of the district, and report them to Congress from time to time, which laws shall be in force in the district until the organization of the general assembly therein, unless disapproved of by Congress; but afterwards the legislature shall have authority to alter them as they shall think fit. S E C. 6. The governor, for the time being, shall be commander-

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in-chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank of general officers; all general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress. S E C. 7. Previous to the organization of the general assembly the governor shall appoint such magistrates, and other civil officers, in each county or township, as he shall find necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order in the same. After the general assembly shall be organized the powers and duties of magistrates and other civil officers shall be regulated and defined by the said assembly; but all magistrates and other civil officers, not herein otherwise directed, shall, during the continuance of this temporary government, be appointed by the governor. S E C. 8. For the prevention of crimes and injuries, the laws to be adopted or made shall have force in all parts of the district, and for the execution of process, criminal and civil, the governor shall make proper divisions thereof; and he shall proceed, from time to time, as circumstances may require, to lay out the parts of the district in which the Indian titles shall have been extinguished, into counties and townships, subject, however, to such alterations as may thereafter be made by the legislature. S E C. 9. So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age, in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships, to represent them in the general assembly; Provided, That for every five hundred free male inhabitants there shall be one representative, and so on, progressively, with the number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representation increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five; after which the number and proportion of representatives shall be regulated by the legislature; Provided, That no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative, unless he shall have been a citizen of one of the United States three years, and be a resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the district three years; and, in either case‚ shall likewise hold in his own right, in feesimple, two hundred acres of land within the same; Provided also, That a freehold in fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the States, and being resident in the dis17

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trict, or the like freehold and two years’ residence in the district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative. S E C. 10. The representatives thus elected shall serve for the term of two years; and in case of the death of a representative, or removal from office, the governor shall issue a writ to the county or township, for which he was a member, to elect another in his stead, to serve for the residue of the term. S E C. 11. The general assembly, or legislature, shall consist of the governor, legislative council, and a house of representatives. The legislative council shall consist of five members, to continue in office five years unless sooner removed by Congress, any three of whom to be a quorum; and the members of the council shall be nominated and appointed in the following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives shall be elected, the governor shall appoint a time and place for them to meet together, and when met they shall nominate ten persons, resident in the district‚ and each possessed of a freehold in five hundred acres of land, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as aforesaid; and whenever a vacancy shall happen in the council, by death or removal from office, the house of representatives shall nominate two persons, qualified as aforesaid, for each vacancy, and return their names to Congress, one of whom Congress shall appoint and commission for the residue of the term; and every five years, four months at least before the expiration of the time of service of the members of the council, the said house shall nominate ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as members of the council five years, unless sooner removed. And the governor, legislative council, and house of representatives shall have authority to make laws in all cases for the good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles and articles in this ordinance established and declared. And all bills, having passed by a majority in the house, and by a majority in the council, shall be referred to the governor for his assent; but no bill, or legislative act whatever, shall be of any force without his assent. The governor shall have power to convene, prorogue, and

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dissolve the general assembly when, in his opinion, it shall be expedient. S E C. 12. The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall appoint in the district, shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity, and of office; the governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As soon as a legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and house assembled in one room shall have authority, by joint ballot, to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress with a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary government. S E C. 13. And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in the said territory; to provide, also, for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the Federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest: S E C. 14. It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid, that the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact, between the original States and the people and States in the said territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to wit: A RTICLE I .

No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship, or religious sentiments, in the said territory. A R T I C L E II.

The inhabitants of the said territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writs of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. All persons shall be bailable, unless for capital offences,

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where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate; and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land, and should the public exigencies make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take any person’s property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation shall be made for the same. And in the just preservation of rights and property, it is understood and declared, that no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said territory, that shall, in any manner whatever, interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud previously formed. A RTICLE III.

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and liberty they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall, from time to time, be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them. A RTICLE I V .

The said territory and the States which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the Articles of Confederation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made; and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in the said territory shall be subject to pay a part of the Federal debts contracted, or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which

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apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the district, or districts, or new States, as in the original States, within the time agreed upon by the United States, in Congress assembled. The legislatures of those districts, or new States, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States, in Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary for securing the title in such soil to the bona-fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and Saint Lawrence, and the carrying-places between the same, shall be common highways and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory, as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost, or duty therefor.

ARTICLE V. There shall be formed in the said territory not less than three, nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the States, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession, and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western State, in the said territory, shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Wabash rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post Vincents, due north, to the territorial line between the United States and Canada; and by the said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post Vincents to the Ohio, by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The eastern State shall be bounded by the last-mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line; Provided, however, And it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered, that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form

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one or two States in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan. And whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever; and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government; Provided, The constitution and government, so to be formed, shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles, and, so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand.

ARTICLE VI. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; Provided always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, relative to the subject of this ordinance, be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and declared null and void. Done by the United States, in Congress assembled, the 13th day of July, in the year of Our Lord 1787, and of their sovereignty and independence the twelfth.

I N D E X Albion, Ill., settled, 248. American Bottom, 34, 38 (note) . Astor, John Jacob, buys out traders at Michilimackinac, 250, 253 (note). Battle of the Thames, 225, 226 (note). Beaujeu (French partisan) at Fort Duquesne, 66; is killed, 68. Bienville, Céloron de, takes formal possession of the Ohio Valley, 42, 43 Big Sandy River, 105 (note). Birkbeck, Morris, his work in the West, 248, 249, 253 (note). Black Hawk War, 250, 253 (note). Blue Licks, Ky., battle at, 127, 128, 130 ( note) . Boisbriant, Dugué de, at Fort Chartres, 36. Boone, Daniel, in Kentucky, 98; explores the country, 102; account of him, 105 (note); builds Boonesborough, 110; capture and rescue of his daughter, 112; is himself taken, 122; escapes, 123. Boouesborough, Ky., begun, 110; is attacked, 123; made seat of justice, 132. Bouquet, Col. Henry, 79 (note); marches against Pontiac, 88. Braddock’s Field, 72 (note). Braddock, Gen. Edward, sent to America, 58; his difficulties, 5961; his obstinacy, 62; divides his

forces, 63; his last camp, 63; is defeated, 68, 69; dies of his wounds, 71; his character, 71 (note); his grave, 72 (note). Bradstreet, Col. John, takes Frontenac, 76, 79 (note). Brock, Sir Isaac, defeats Hull, 219; is killed, 226 (note). Bryan’s Station, Ky., built, 124; assaulted, 127. Buckeye State, the name, 155. Buffalo, N. Y., an Indian village, 195, 196, 200 (note); in 1805, 237. Bunch of Grapes Tavern, Ohio Co. organized at, 150. Burr, Aaron, his treason, 230, 232 (note). Bushy Run, battle at, 88. Cahokia described, 36. Canada described, 4-8; its trade, 7, 8; compared with American colonies, 54. Carter, Lorenzo, at Cleveland, 198. Cass, Lewis, Governor of Michigan, 226, 253 ( note ). Chicago, a military post, 217; garrison mostly massacred, 219, 220, 226 (note); residents of, 253 (note). Chillicothe, O., settled, 200; State convention meets at, 204, and note. Cincinnati, O., founded, 161 et seq.; the date, 167 (note): the name, 168 (note); steam navigation begins at, 234.

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INDEX

Clarke, George Rogers, plans to attack the Illinois settlements, 117; raises men, 118; and marches to Kaskaskia, 119, 121 (note); invades Ohio, 129. Cleaveland, Moses, goes to Ohio, 196; holds a council with Iroquois, 196, 199 ( note). Cleveland, O., laid out, 197; early settlers of, 198. Clinton, De Witt, a promoter of the Erie Canal, 238. Colden, Cadwallader, conceives the idea of the Erie Canal, 237. Colerain, O., settled, 167. Columbus, O., begun, 221, 226 (note). Congress, The, of 1754 assembles, 57. Conneaut Creek, O., visited, 197; surveyors winter at, 198, 200 (note). Connecticut Reserve, how named, 148; its area, 153 (note ); sold and settled, 196 et seq.; formed into Trumbull County, 199. Cornstalk, Shawnee chief, commands at Point Pleasant, 107. Corydon, Ind., 244 (note). Croghan, Major George, his brave defence of Fort Stephenson, 223. Cumberland Gap visited, 95. Camberland Mountains named, 95. Cumberland River named, 95, 104 (note). Cutler, Manasseh, his part in the Ohio Company’s plans, 150, 153 (note). Davenport, Ia., 250. Dayton, O., begun, 200, 204 (note). Dayton, Jonathan, 200. Delawares remove from Pennsylvania, 41; in Ohio, 47 (note). Denman, Matthias, secures land in Ohio, 162, 167 (note). Detroit Strait, seized by the French, 22.

Detroit occupied, 23; taken by the English, 79; seat of Pontiac’s attempts, 82; siege raised, 89, 90 (note); made a base, 218; is surrendered, 219; is recovered, 225; first steamer arrives at, 235; described, 250; first newspaper, 251. Dinwiddie, Gov. Robert, moves to check the French, 47. DuLhut seizes Detroit Strait, 22. Dunbar, Col. Thomas, 63; retreats, 71, 72 (note). Dunmore, Lord, marches against the Ohio tribes, 106; builds Fort Gower, 107. Duquesne, Marquis, seizes upon a new defensive line to the Ohio, 45. Erie, Pa, settled, 197. See, also, P RESQUISLE. Erie Canal, its history, 236 et seq. Evansville, Ind., 243. Fallen Timbers, 187 (note). Filson, John, his mysterious disappearance, 162, 167 (note). Findlay, John, in Kentucky, 96. Firelands (of Ohio), how named, 196. Forbes, Gen. John, marches against Duquesne, 76; dies, 80 (note). Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, 253 ( note). Fort Chartres built, 34; its situation, 36, 38 (note). Fort Crawford, Wis., 253 ( note). Fort Cumberland, Md., Braddock’s army at, 60. Fort Dearborn, Ill., 226 (note). Fort Defiance built, 182, 187 ( note). Fort Duqnesne, begun, 51; English turned out of, 52; preparations to retake it, 58; battle near, 68 e t seq.; Forbes marches against, 76; is evacuated, 77; renamed Fort Pitt, 77. Fort Frontenac taken, 75.

INDEX Fort Gower built, 107. Fort Greenville, O., built, 181; treaty of, 188. Fort Hamilton, O., built, 176. Fort Harmar, O., built, 149. Fort Harrison, 211. Fort Howard, Wis., 253 (note). Fort Jefferson, O., built, 176. Fort La Baie. See G REEN B AY . Fort Laurens built, 140; besieged and abandoned, 141, 142 ( note). Fort Le Bœuf (Pa.) built, 46; Washington at, 50; taken by Indians, 86, 90 ( note). Fort Massac, 121 (note). Fort Meigs, O., built, 222; besieged, 222, 226 (note ) . Fort Miami (of the Maumee), 25, 26 ( note). Fort Miamis (of La Salle), 25, 26 (note). Fort Necessity, Pa., built, 52; taken, 53. Fort Ouatenon built, 37. Fort Pitt named, 77. See, also, FORT D UQUESNE . Fort Recovery, O., built, 182. Fort St. Joseph, site of, 25, 26 (note). Fort Stephenson (Fremont, O.) attacked, 223. Fort Washington, O., built, 164, 167 (note). Fort Winnebago, Wis., 253 (note). France, her policy toward the United States, 1782, 130, 131 (note). Franklin, Benjamin, proposes a colonial union, 54, 57, 58 (note); aids Braddock, 61; his land schemes, 114. Franklinton, O., 221. Fraser, John, at Venango, Pa., 46; who he was, 48 ( note ); with Washington, 49. Fraser’s House, refer to map, p. 64, 71 ( note).

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Fremont, O., 222. French Creek made part of military line to the Ohio, 45. Frenchtown, Mich. ( see MONROE), 226 (note). Gage, Thomas, with Braddock, 61; has the advance, 64; is driven back, 68 Gallipolis, O., 167, 168 ( note). Gates, Horatio, with Braddock, 61. Girty, Simon, raids Kentucky, 127. Gist, Christopher, explores Ohio, 44; his route, 47 ( note); with Washington, 48. Gladwin, Major Henry, defends Detroit, 83. Gnadenhütten, 144 (note ). Great Kanawha, 108 (note). Great Manatoulin Island, mission at, 22. Great Meadows, Pa., Washington forms a camp at, 52. Green Bay (Mission), 11; described, 15 (note). Green Bay taken (Pontiac’s War), 87. Gunn, Elijah, comes to Cleveland, 198, 200 (note ). Harmar, Gen. Josiah, takes command of Fort Harmar, 165, 167 ( note ); defeated by the Miamis, 174. Harmony, Ind., in 1819, 242, 243, 244 ( note ). Harrison, Wm. H., sent to Congress, 202; Gov. of Indiana, 205; takes the field against the Indians, 210; and defeats them, 211; relieves Fort Wayne, 221; builds Fort Meigs, 222; invades Canada and beats the British at the Thames, 225. Harrod, James, builds first in Kentucky, 104; his origin, 105 (note). Hawley, Esek, at Cleveland, 198. Hawley, Jesse, agitates for the Erie Canal, 236.

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Henderson, Richard, his Kentucky colony, 114, 116 (note). Hendricks, William, first Congressman from Indiana, 239. Holston River, Tenn., new settlements on, 96. Hubbel, Capt. William, his gallant defence, 168. Huil, Gen. William, Gov. of Michigan, 218; invades Canada, 218; surrenders Detroit, 219; is tried, 226 (note). Illinois, government of Virginia established in, 119; formed a county, 166; set off from Indiana, 206; admitted, 246; settlements in, 247, 248 et seq., 252 ( note). Illinois Nations, 13; remove to the Mississippi, 34. Illinois River, established as a thoroughfare, 25. Indiana, made a county, 166; a territory, 203, 205 et seq.; slavery in, 205; checks emigration, 206; Louisiana attached to, 206; first legislature, 206; war with Tecumseh, 209; white population of, 213 (note); a State, 239. Iroquois, their enmity to the French, 5, 15 (note); their dominion, 16; have to be placated, 58 (note) ; place the Shawnees, 93, 94, 104 (note); fall of, 193; Senecas retire to Niagara River, 195. Jeffersonville, Ind., 244 (note) . Johnson, Col. Richard M., at the Battle of the Thames, 225, 228. Kankakee, the name, 26 (note); the route described, 30, 31. Kaskaskia, village at, 34; described, 36. Kentucky explored by Gist, 44; Indians of, 93; explored by Walker, 95; by Finlay and Boone, 96 e t seq.; the name, 104 (note); new settlements in, 117; emigration to,

123, 124; how lands were taken up. 132; made a county of Virginia, 132; asks admission to the Union, 133; population, 133 (note); crops, trade, and recreations of the people, 136,137; admitted, 187 (note). Kentucky Gazette, the, first issued, 152. .. Kingsbury, James, at Cleveland, 198, 200 (note) . La Hontan, Baron de, at Detroit, 22. La Motte-Cadillac, at Michilimackinac, 22; begins Detroit, 23. La Salle, Robert, Cavalier de, the king’s opinion of his discoveries, 4, 8; his discovery of the Ohio, 11; in Illinois, 12, 13; reaches the Gulf, 13, 15 (note ); fort on the St. Joseph, 24. Law, John, his Mississippi scheme, 32, 35, 38 (note) . Le Bœuf (Fort) built, 46. Lewis, Gen. Andrew, commands the colonial forces at Point Pleasant, 106. Lexington, Ky., settled, 117, 121 (note). Little Meadows, Braddock at, 62. Little Turtle (Miami chief) defeats Harmar, 173; and St. Clair, 176, 177, 187 ( note) . Logan, a Mingo chief, 108 (note); his speech, 109. Logan, Benjamin, settles in Kentucky, 110, 112 (note). Logstown, Pa., situation of, 47 (note ); Washington there, 49. Louis XIV., his estimate of La Salle’s work, 4; his rule in Canada, 7. Louisiana, the name, 15 (note); progress of settlement in, 32; northern boundaries, 32. Louisville, Ky., visited, 48 (note ) 105 (note); begun, 119, 121 ( note); first steamboat arrives at, 234.

INDEX Lower Sandusky (Fremont, O.) occupied, 222. Ludlow, Israel, begins Cincinnati, 163. McIntire, John, at Zanesville, 202. Manchester, O., settled, 167, 168 (note ). Marietta, O., settled, 154 et Seq. Massie, Nathaniel, founds Chillicothe, O., 200. Maumee Ford, 179 (note). Meigs, Return J., at Marietta, 158. Mercer, Hugh, with Braddock, 61. Miamis, tribes located, 25, 26 (note ) ; village described, 27; hostilities with, 172; defeat Harmar, 173. Michigan, joined to Northwest Territory, 200; 205 (note); population, 217; set off, 218; Indians removed from, 250; new limits of, 250; but little explored, 251; boundary dispute, 252; gets the Upper Peninsula, 252; is admitted, 252. Michilimackinac (Mission), 11; its importance, 19; its name, 19; a trading-post begun, 20; described, 20, 22; taken (Pontiac’s War), 86, 90 (note); taken by British, 218; American fur-trade at, 250, 253 (note). Military Bounty Lands, O., 205 (note). Milwaukee, Wis., 253 (note). Mississippi River, early routes to, 13. Moravians, The, settle in Ohio, 142; plundered and massacred, 144 and note. Monroe, Mich., 217; battle at, 222, 226 (note). Montreal, its relation to Canada, 5. National Road, The, causes leading to its construction, 229 et seq.; begun, 231. New Albany, Ind., 240, 244 (note). New France, its original limits, 38 (note).

267

New Lancaster, O., settled, 202. Newbury, O., settled. 167. Niagara coveted by the French, 17; La Salle’s fort at, 17; Denonville builds a second, 18; third fort at, 19 (note). North Bend, O., begun, 163. Northwest Territory, The, inception of, 145; the States relinquish their title to, 148; is organized, 150; first government of, 151, 153 (notes 1, 2, 6, 8); formally proclaimed, 159; Michigan annexed to, 200; Ohio set off, 204; population of, 215. Ohio, Indians of, 41; English traders in, 42; French seize upon, 43; expeditions to, 140; land cessions in, by the States, 148, 149; forts built in, 149; is included in the Northwest Territory, 150; settlement begins in, 154; ancient mounds in, 155, 156, 160 (note); other settlements in, 167,196, 197; becomes a Territory, 202; and State, 204,205 (note). Ohio Company, The (1749), organized, 43; causes war, 47 (note). Ohio Company (1786), 153 (note). Ohio River, La Salle’s claim to its discovery, 11, 15 (note). Ordinance of 1787 enacted, 150 (for text, see Appendix); forbids slavery, 150. Peoria, Ill., site of a French fort, 13. perry, Oliver Hazard, captures the British fleet on Lake Erie, 224, 225. Pickering, Timothy, 146. Piqua, O., sacked, 47 (note). Pitt, William, his masterly management of the war, 75. Pittsburg named, 79 (note). Point Pleasant, battle of, 106; site of, 108 (note). Pontiac, forms a conspiracy against

268

INDEX

the English, 82; its failure, 89, 90 (note). Portland, Ky., 240, 244 (note). Pottawatomies, tribes located, 25; village described, 27; their games, 29. Pownall, Thomas, opposes Franklin’s plan of union, 58 (note). Presquisle (Erie, Pa.), occupied by the French, 45, 48 (note); taken from them, 78, 80 (note); taken from the English, 85; settled, 197. Princeton, Ind., in 1819, 242. Puants. See W INNEBAGOES. Putnam, Rufus, active in settling the Northwest Territory, 146, 150; organizes a new Ohio Company, 150, 153 (note). Quebec, its importance to Canada, 4; taken, 78. Rapp, George, 242. Raystown. See B EDFORD , PA ., 76. Redstone, 232. Reed, Charles M., settled at Erie, Pa., 197. Rock Island, Ill., 249. St. Asaph’s, 112 (note). St. Clair, Arthur, Gov. of Ohio, 152; defeated, 178; opposes admission, 202. St. Esprit (Mission), 11. St. Francis Xavier (Mission), 15 (note). St. Louis begun, 122 (note). St. Pierre Legardeur at Fort Le Bœuf, 50. St. Philip, Ill., founded, 36 Sault Ste. Marie (Mission), 11; French take possession of, 12. St. Simon (Mission), 22. Sandusky surprised. 85. Senecas defeated by the French, 18. Seven Ranges (O.), The, 149. Seven Years’ War, in Europe and America, 75, 76.

Shawnees remove from Pennsylvania, 41; fall back from the Ohio, 139. Steam navigation in the West, 232 et seq. Stiles, Benjamin, begins Columbia, O., l62, 167 (note). Symmes, John Cleves, in Ohio, 161; begins North Bend, 163, 167 (note ). Taylor, Zachary, defends Fort Harrison, 221. Tecumseh stirs the Indians to revolt, 209; goes over to the English, 213 and note; active in the War of 1812, 212; killed, 225; anecdote of 227. Terre Haute, 211; the name, 33, 38 (note ). The Rock, Ill., French fort at, 13, 15 (note ); deserted, 24. Tippecanoe, battle-ground, 210, 213 (note ). Toledo, O., 253 (note). Transylvania Company (of Ky.) formed, 102; account of, 114, 116 ( notes 3, 4); laws of, 131. Tupper, Benjamin, 149, 153 (note ). Utica, Ill., 13, 15 (note). Venango (Pa.) made a French post, 46; taken by Indians, 86. Vincennes, Ind., beginnings of, 37, 38; the name, 38 (note); taken by Clarke 119, 121; made a countyseat, 166; in 1819, 242. Virginia, old charter limits, 39. Virginia Military District (of Ohio), how named, 148; settlement in, 200. Walker, Thomas, in Kentucky, 95, 104 (note ) . Walpole’s Grant, 114, 116 (note). Washington, George, chosen a bearer of despatches, 47; his route to the Ohio, 48 et seq.; brings on hostili-

INDEX ties, 52; is captured, 53; goes out again with Braddock, 61; expostulates with him, 62. Wayne, General Anthony, chosen to conduct the war, 180; his campaign against the confederate Indians, 181 et seq.; defeats them at the Fallen Timbers, 185; builds Fort Wayne, 186; makes peace, 188; dies, 204 (note). Wheeling (W. Va.) settled, 105; attacked, 125. Wills Creek, 43; its importance, 47 (note).

269

Winchester, General James, commands in Ohio, 22l; is defeated and surrenders, 222, 226 (note). Winnebagoes (Puants) located, 15 (note). Wisconsin in 1810, 250. Witherspoon, John, 153 (note). Woodbridge, William, first delegate from Michigan, 252. Zane, Ebenezer, settles Wheeling, 105; builds roads in Ohio, 201; and founds Zanesville, 202. Zane, Elizabeth, her heroism, 125. Zanesville, O., settled, 202.

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